‘Circuits of Experiences, Research and Knowledges’ is a four day conference that
will deal with the question: how to gather when structures to gather dissappear?
Bergen 26–29 June 2025
Bergen 26–29 June 2025
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Anne Beate Hovind
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Carol Yinghua Lu
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Cis O'Boyle (Idle Women)
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Daniela Ramos Arias
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Damir Avdagić
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Eszter Szakács
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Federica Baeza
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Flóra Gadó
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Frances Morris
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Gladys Kalichini
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Jaleesa Johnston
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Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano
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Karolin Tampere
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Mack McFarland
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Manuela Moscoso
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Martin Caiger-Smith
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Michelle Yeonho Hyun
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Neo Sinoxolo Musangi
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Patrick Flores
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Rachel Anderson (Idle Women)
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Renata Cervetto
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Sabina Sabolović/WHW
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Silja Leifsdottir
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Syafiatudina
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Zdenka Badovinac
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Bergen 26–29 June 2025 * Anne Beate Hovind * Carol Yinghua Lu * Cis O'Boyle (Idle Women) * Daniela Ramos Arias * Damir Avdagić * Eszter Szakács * Federica Baeza * Flóra Gadó * Frances Morris * Gladys Kalichini * Jaleesa Johnston * Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano * Karolin Tampere * Mack McFarland * Manuela Moscoso * Martin Caiger-Smith * Michelle Yeonho Hyun * Neo Sinoxolo Musangi * Patrick Flores * Rachel Anderson (Idle Women) * Renata Cervetto * Sabina Sabolović/WHW * Silja Leifsdottir * Syafiatudina * Zdenka Badovinac *
Welcome to Bergen in June
‘Circuits of Experiences, Research and Knowledges’ will be populated by curators, artists, art mediators and educators.
The conference is expected to gather around 150 professionals from different places in the world, focusing on contemporary art.
Prompted by increasing polarisation in many parts of the world, and a consistent dismantling or co-opting of institutions, the main topic of the conference is:
how to gather when structures to gather disappear? The conference will focus on how curatorial and educational practices can act as productive answers to the question above, since those that practice the curatorial and educational are public intellectuals that create spaces for cultural activity and gatherings that are not predetermined or dictated by protocols.
It is a conference that simultaneously will mark the ten-year anniversary of the MA Curatorial Practice at the University of Bergen, and the end of this educational programme. The Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design proposed to the University board to end this international education for curators on 6 September 2024, which it did on 28 November 2024, incidentally also closing the only education for curators in Norway.
This local and international backdrop creates an urgency to gather, to solidify international networks and to sow the seeds of new connections to grow in the future.
Anne Szefer Karlsen, April 2025
Circuits of Experiences, Research and Knowledges
draws from Humans of the Institution, a gathering organised in Amsterdam 25–27 November 2017 by Anne Szefer Karlsen and Vivian Ziherl (Frontier Imaginaries).
In preparation for Ericka Florez and Hernán Barón’s danceable lecture Sobredosis de amor, which marked the end of the talks and transition to the workshops during the Humans of the Institution, salsa lessons were provided by Jorge Suarez from Swing Latino during the lunch hours of Saturday 25 November and Sunday 26 November 2017 at Veem House for Performance.
Image by Tarona Leonora.
The conference draws from and expands an international network of more than 500 professionals that have grown out of the de-centralised study model developed through the MA Curatorial Practice at the University of Bergen since 2015.
A key component of the MA programme was to engage with local specialists during the MA seminars. Beach lecture entitled ‘Singapore is a sculpture!’ with David Ten in September 2016, hosted by NTU CCA Singapore.
Connecting with a diverse range of curatorial practices was key to the MA programme. Meeting with the collaborative curatorial duo home school (manuel arturo abreu and Victoria Anne Reis) when they were Curators in Residence for the 2022—23 season at Oregon Contemporary in Portland. OR, USA.
It was important to partner with local organsiations to also extend their capacities when the MA programme visited. Here from the co-prodcued public lecture in September 2020 with Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and her conversation with Lisette Lagnado. Co-oragnised with the 11th Berlin Biennial team.
Graduating class of 2017: Kari Skippervold, Silja Leifsdottir, Katarina Marthinsen, Ingrid Haug Erstad, Vidar Koksvik, Eivind Hoffstad Evjemo, Kristoffer Dolmen
Graduating class of 2021: Benjamin Milton Hampe, Vibeke Hermanrud, Syafiatudina, Daniela Ramos Arias, Léna Szirmay-Kalos, Kathy-Ann Tan, Ditte Knus Tønnesen. (Here represented by an image from Daniela Ramos Arias’ public online exam presentation.)
Graduating class of 2023: Kira van Hoegee, Itzel Esquivel, Stéphane Kabila Kyowa, Izabella Borzęcka, Jaleesa Johnston, Flóra Gadó
Planning a cycle of the MA Curatorial Practice programme required of all the curators who participated to make space and time for the seminars in their calendars.
The MA programme was also a convivial professional space where many individual connections were made and continue to deepen to this day. Here from the joint session with the De Ying Curatorial Fellowship group in Shanghai, December 2024.
Graduating class of 2019: Rick Herron, Hanns Lennart Wiesner, Rose Jepkorir Kiptum, Torill Østby Haaland, Tove Aadland Sørvåg, Eszter Sakaćs, Gilda Axelroud, Sara Greavu, Tatiana Lozano
At least once during an MA cycle the group would take part in international discursive gatherings and conferences. Here from Livingstone Office for Contemporary Art in Zambia, and their gathering ‘People who think together, dance together' in April 2023.
The building block of the MA programme has always been the participating curators’ own practices and their MA project, which is fully developed and conextualised by the participants in their own contexts. The image above is from the announcement of the public exam presentation by the graduating class of 2023.
The MA programme has since December 2021 developed ‘The Dream Contract for Curators’. A public document to think with for curators that are entering in to contractual relationships with institutions and organisations. Here from the re-working of the documnet in a joint session with the Association of Swedish Curators in Stockholm, December 2023, hosted by IASPIS.