How to gather when structures to gather disappear?
June 26–29, 2025
Norway
Circuits of Experiences, Research and Knowledges (June 26–29, 2025) is a conference prompted by increasing polarisation in many parts of the world, and the dismantling or co-opting of institutions. It asks: how to gather when structures to gather disappear? The four-day conference focuses on how curatorial and educational practices within contemporary art might provide some productive answers.
Full programme here.
Adriana Domínguez Velasco, Andrea De Pascual, Anne Beate Hovind, Carol Yinghua Lu, Cis O’Boyle (Idle Women), Clara Balaguer, Damir Avdagić, Daniela Ramos Arias, Eszter Szakács, Eva Rowson, Federica Baeza, Flóra Gadó, Frances Morris, Gladys Kalichini, Jaleesa Johnston, Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano, Julia Moranderia Arrizabalaga, Michelle Yeonho Hyun, Neo Sinoxolo Musangi, Mack McFarland, Manuela Moscoso, María Berríos, Martin Caiger-Smith, Myriam Amroun, Natasha Marie Llorens, Olivier Marboeuf, Paloma Ayala, Patrick Flores, Rachel Anderson (Idle Women), Renata Cervetto, Sabina Sabolović/WHW, Silja Leifsdottir, Syafiatudina, Zdenka Badovinac
Initiated and organised by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Professor Curatorial Practice
Curatorial Assistant: Ruby Eleftheriotis.
The conference marks the ten-year anniversary of the MA Curatorial Practice at the University of Bergen. It also marks the end of this international course, following a recent faculty and university board decision to close it down. This backdrop adds an urgency to gather, to solidify transnational networks and to sow the seeds that enable new connections to grow in the future.
Circuits of Experiences, Research and Knowledges is expected to gather 150 professionals from all around the world in Bergen/Birgon, Norway. The conference will be hosted at the top of Fløy mountain, at Fløirestauranten, Bergen Kjøtt, Landmark, Cornerteateret, Bergen Assembly and Bergen Kunsthall.
Secure your free seat here. Donations are welcome to enable documentation of the conference.
Collaborators in Bergen/Birgon have generously created a pre-programme on June 25–26, 2025: Plattform talk at Bergen Kunsthall with Neo Sinoxolo Musangi at 5 pm June 25. Plattform is Bergen Kunsthall’s series of lectures and debates with artists and prominent thinkers. Kitchen dinner at Hordaland Art Centre with Daniela Ramos Arias, Petra Rahm and Mathijs van Geest at 7 pm June 25, focusing on the Dear Neighbour-project where they have invited artists to develop projects about, for and together with the neighbourhood. In the Kitchen Dinners artists invite the audience to share a meal with them, while engaging in conversations related to their work. Volt has commissioned a city walk around the Nordnes peninsula in the centre of Bergen/Birgon by Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano at 12pm June 26. Volt is a long-term, Bergen-based curatorial project that focuses on commissioning and presenting new contemporary artworks from practitioners working across a diverse range of media.
Partner organisations for the conference are The Norwegian Association of Curators and OCA - Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and additional support has been received from Arts Council Norway – Norwegian Cultural Fund, KORO–Public Art Norway, Idle Women, Norwegian Consulate General in Shanghai, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Beijing, IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen, Hordaland Art Centre and Volt.
