Processing Artistic and Curatorial Research


This online course focuses on a specific model of exhibition-making by mapping and manifesting diverse artistic methodologies and models of collaborative engagements and commitments under constantly evolving and changing conditions and terms.

In this vein, this online course will discuss the challenge of communicating artistic research and the work-related process in the physical space of the exhibition venue. The execution of this idea unfolds through numerous questions regarding the processes and issues concerning the research, creation, presentation, and perception related to the work throughout the project. Furthermore, different modes of engagement, through some cases exemplifying commitments between artists and curators, between curators and institutions, and between artists and institutions, will be discussed with a focus on modes of engagement.

The course will navigate different cases from Senova’s curatorial practices and research of “making exhibitions” through a comprehensive analysis. Participants will be asked to develop their exhibition proposals through an assignment. The lecturer will review these assignments and then discuss them within the group. This will enable participants to analyze and contemplate the difficulties they may encounter when working on their individual projects.

 

Basak Senova is a curator and designer (MFA in Graphic Design and Ph.D. in Art, Design, and Architecture) who has been writing on art, technology, and media, initiating and developing projects, and curating exhibitions since 1995. Senova is the Turkish correspondent of Flash Art International and a member of the editorial board of PASS, International Biennial Association’s (IBA) journal, and a corresponding member of the Secession. Senova acted as an advisory board member of the Turkish Pavilion at Venice Biennale, the Istanbul Biennial, and the Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 ARK Underground in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Senova curated the Turkey and Republic of Macedonia pavilions at the Venice Biennale in 2009 and 2015. She co-curated the UNCOVERED project (Cyprus, 2011-2013) and the 2nd and 5th Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-O ARK Underground (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2013 and 2019).

She acted as the Art Gallery Chair of (ACM) SIGGRAPH 2014 (Vancouver), the curator of the Helsinki Photography Biennial 2014, and the Jerusalem Show VII: Fractures (2014). In 2016, she curated the Lines of Passage (in medias res) Exhibition in Lesvos, and in 2019, the inaugural exhibition of B7L9, Climbing Through the Tide, in Tunis. Between 2017-2019, she worked on CrossSections, a research/process-based art project, and curated five groups and three solo exhibitions in the project context in Vienna, Helsinki, Stockholm, and Rome in 2018 and 2019. In 2022, she concluded the Octopus Programme with two exhibitions in Tunis and Vienna. Currently, she holds a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher position at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with her PEEK project, Atlas (of Creative Mechanisms): [Curating-Conducting], awarded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).