July 26–28, 2018
Experimenter is pleased to announce the 8th edition of the Experimenter Curators’ Hub on Thursday, July 26, Friday, July 27 & Saturday, July 28, 2018 at Experimenter, 2/1 Hindustan Road, Kolkata 700029, India.
Experimenter Curators’ Hub is a platform in developing and sustaining discourse on curatorial practice and exhibition-making through critical discussion and debate. Structured as a deeply intensive 3-day program, every year the hub invites some of the foremost curators of the world to present their practice with reference to recent exhibitions curated by them. The audience at Experimenter Curators' Hub plays an active role in this exchange and contributes significantly to the conversations. The final day ends with a moderated panel discussion with all the participating curators, reflecting on the key aspects that emerged over the three days.
Experimenter Curators’ Hub is organised by Experimenter Learning Program in partnership with Sharjah Art Foundation. Experimenter Curators’ Hub is also supported by Australia Council for The Arts and Goethe Institute, as well as The Park (hospitality partner) and Take Magazine (media partner).
The participating curators at ECH 2018 are documenta 14, 2017 Artistic Director, Adam Szymczyk; Curator at Shanghai Biennale 2016, Jeebesh Bagchi; Founding director of SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung; and Cultural Critic and Director of Global Art Forum, Shumon Basar. Completing this year’s revered group are independent curator Erin Gleeson; Urbanists Prasad Shetty and Rupali Gupte; Professor of Art and Aesthetics at JNU, Delhi, Kavita Singh; Researcher at Asia Art Archive, Sabih Ahmed; Curator at the Institute of Modern Art in Mianjin, Léuli Eshraghi; Curator at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Övül Ö. Durmusoglu. The hub is moderated by curator, researcher, and writer, Natasha Ginwala.
Since it was founded in 2011, ECH has hosted 67 leading practitioners. Last year’s speakers included curator, writer and Arts Manager, Pedro de Almeida, Associate Curator at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Reem Fadda, Director of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Roobina Karode, Curator and Co-Director of Swiss Cultural centre in Paris, Olivier Kaeser, Head of Research and Programming at Art Asia Pacific, Hammad Nasar, Curator and Art Historian, Barbara Piwowarska, curator at PS1 MOMA, Ruba Katrib, Director of Graduate Programme at Bard College, Lauren Cornell, and Curator at Tate Modern, Nada Raza.
The Hub will be live streamed, breaking down traditional constraints of location and opening up the debate to people around the world. Online audiences will have the chance to interact with, and question the curators in real time. In 2017, over 18,000 people were connected to the Hub via web-streaming.
During ECH this month, the gallery will also announce full details for the Experimenter Learning Program (ELP), an ambitious and deeply enriching yearlong educational programme. Sharjah Art Foundation is the lead partner for ECH and ELP, and will live stream ECH activities across its venues during the days of the hub.
The Experimenter Learning Program (ELP) is envisioned as a long-term, sustainable and multifaceted learning and education programme that keeps visual culture at its root to build discourse around. ELP will be the kernel on which Experimenter will expound its continued interest in enabling dialogue, discussion and debate in fields of contemporary and performing arts, curatorship, film, writing, language and social culture. ELP will have a year-long schedule that will include the annual ECH, workshops, salon-style classrooms, symposia, lecture performances and Experimenter Juniors Program.
Prateek and Priyanka Raja, Experimenter co-founders said: "The Experimenter Curators Hub was organised out of a crucial need to critically discuss and debate curatorial practices across the world, to learn, converse and thereby possibly throw open possibilities of understanding what lies behind significant contemporary exhibition-making. The ECH is a unique setting that allows for a certain intimacy, letting curators open up in a way that no other forum allows. The intimateness of the conversations and the possibilities that emerge from some of the most fertile minds in the world of contemporary art is palpable. The energy in the room augments criticism and theory as a starting ground."
Hammad Nasar, Executive Director of Stuart Hall Foundation, London and ECH 2017 participant said: "Experimenter Curators’ Hub is a well of collegiality. It is critical, supportive, and generous, and is a welcome pause to reflect and share."
All presentations by curators will be added to the Experimenter website, offered as a resource to enable further audiences to experience the event. Films from the previous editions can also be viewed here: www.experimenter.in/web/node/49
Ticket Information
The Experimenter Curators’ Hub is free to attend. Places at the event will be offered on a first come, first served basis. Please email admin@experimenter.in to register for the date/s on which you would like to attend.
For more information please visit: www.experimenter.in or email admin@experimenter.in
For further press information and images please contact: Rebecca Butler at Sutton E: rebecca@suttonpr.com; T: +44 (0) 207 1833577
About Experimenter
Experimenter was co-founded by Prateek & Priyanka Raja in 2009. With a multidisciplinary approach, the gallery is an incubator for an ambitious and challenging contemporary practice. The program represents some of the most critical contemporary artists worldwide. Considered to be a "pace-setter" for its region, the program extends from exhibition-making, to knowledge creation, through regular talks, performances, workshops and most importantly, through it’s much acclaimed, annual curatorial intensive, Experimenter Curators’ Hub. In 2016, its artist-book publishing wing, Experimenter Books was launched. Experimenter’s program is rooted in dialogue and dissent.
About Experimenter Curators’ Hub
The Experimenter Curators’ Hub brings together some of the foremost minds in curatorship from all over the world. Founded in 2009 by Priyanka and Prateek Raja, the event is a crucial platform for developing and sustaining discourse on curatorial practice and exhibition making. Each year, ten curators, artists, designers and architects are invited to present and discuss their practice in depth through presentations on recent exhibitions they have personally conceived. Experimenter Curators’ Hub presentations and ensuing discussions are extensively video documented and archived as an online, freely-accessible resource offered to fellow curators, researchers, scholars, artists and members of the public.
