After an Art PhD: Organising Towards New Intimacies

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Join Emeri Curd and Cléo Verstrepen in the final event in a series of four, each exploring the work of two art research practitioners with related interests who have completed doctoral study in recent years, to examine the possibilities and challenges of practice after an art PhD.

Emeri Curd will discuss the intersection of institutional, community and grassroots/DIY settings and the complexities of this practice. They will use examples across the last ten years of practice – before, during and after their PhD – including conversations about action research, grassroots organising, institutional critique, care/co-option, solidarity, failure and queerness. Emeri is interested in what exists in grey areas; how and why socially engaged and activist practices leak and spill; and how the messiness of this work challenges infrastructure within institutions. Their work is increasingly DIY and seeks to agitate popular practices of ‘care’ and the ethical dimensions of institutional practice.

Cléo Verstrepen’s presentation will explore how doctoral research can serve as a foundation for ongoing curatorial and artistic experimentation rather than a purely academic endpoint. Drawing on their experience across independent curating, collective practice and institutional research, they will discuss how to navigate the balance between theoretical inquiry, creative work and financial sustainability. They will argue that academic frameworks can both stabilise and nourish experimental practice, allowing theory and practice to continuously inform one another.

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Images (left to right): Emeri Curd (image: Carl Davies); Cléo Verstrepen.

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Host or Publisher Exhibition Research Lab