[Re-]Thinking Curating Design and Craft: Beyond institutional frameworks

Name: [Re-]Thinking Curating Design and Craft: Beyond institutional frameworks
Start: 2024-10-31T18:30:00+02:00
End: 2024-10-31T20:30:00+02:00
Location: Maria Skolgata 83, Stockholm

Schedule

Thu Oct 31 2024 at 06:30 pm to 08:30 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Maria Skolgata 83, Stockholm | Stockholm, ST

[Re-]Thinking Curating Design and Craft: Beyond institutional frameworks

Date: Thursday 31 October 2024
Time: 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Place: IASPIS/Konstnärsnämnden + online
Address: Maria Skolgata 83 Stockholm
Language: English
Free admission, no reservation needed

Welcome to the third conversation about contemporary curatorial practice operating in relation to Design and Craft! With Michael Barrett and Sumitra Upham, introduction and moderation by Magnus Ericson and Christina Zetterlund.

In this seminar, we will focus on an expanded understanding of craft, as existing in many geographies and traveling through diverse epistemologies. With an attempt to move past given institutional definitions and divisions, it takes its point of departure in the handmade – something that is being practised in various places by people with diverse backgrounds and different forms of education. Together with curators Michael Barrett and Sumitra Upham, we will investigate how to curate craft beyond the traditional institutional frameworks. They will, through their distinct practices, show how curating can invite this great complexity of craft, as well as discuss the challenges involved in this work.

Michael Barrett is an anthropologist, researcher, and curator of the African collections at the National Museums of World Culture (NMWC) in Sweden. His current research focus is on the colonial history of the collections as well as on the representation of Africa and people of African descent in museum displays in past, present, and future Sweden. Recent curatorial work includes Ongoing Africa (2017–2024), a project which critically examines the vast collections from the African continent at the NMWC through collaborations, research, exhibitions, and public programs.

Sumitra Upham is a curator based in London with an interest in material cultures, urbanism and the civic role of institutions. Currently, she is Associate Director, Curatorial and Public Practice at Wellcome Collection. She was Co-curator of Dancing Before the Moon, the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2022) and Head of Programmes at the Crafts Council. Previously she held curatorial and programming positions at the Design Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

Christina Zetterlund is Craft and Design historian active as independent curator as well as educator and researcher at the Department of Design, Linnaeus University. Magnus Ericson is Head of Applied Arts, IASPIS and a curator and educator working across Design, Architecture, urbanism, and Art.

[Re-]Thinking Curating Design and Craft is a series of conversations presented by IASPIS, developed and implemented as a collaboration between Christina Zetterlund and Magnus Ericson.

Image: Designer Nchawaka Kanyama (Manje by Ncha) shows her Kuwesa collection (2022) in Lusaka, Zambia. Textile patterns are inspired by Zambian cultural belongings held at the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. Photo: Andrea Davis Kronlund