Interface Studio: Reverse Curation – Edu-curation

Studio leader: Dr Anika van Aswegen, Collaborators: The Javett Curatorial Team

Discursive design is a project of expansion and new possibilities (Tharp & Tharp 2018:23)

The Interface Studio uses co-creative processes and arts-based inquiries to subvert conventional exhibition practices. The Javett Art Centre introduced the concept of ‘reverse curation’ as part of their mandate to ensure cultural exchange, critical multi-disciplinary interactions and dialogues by introducing the open ‘classroom’. This supports the decolonisation of curatorial practices, especially where opportunities for art encounters and socio-cultural exchange and integration that extend beyond the gallery. Multiple intelligences and epistemic diversity are integral to understanding and engaging with reverse curation, as edu-curation. The project is a collaboration with the Javett Curatorial Team and considers the Collective Learning (Class)room, which will also serve as studio and workspace. Gallery mapping and urban mapping inform the multi-layered context in which the project is situated. A theoretical framework of discursive design, multi-scalar interfaces through human-environmental interactions and scenario design informs the edu-curation approach. The studio aims to develop a series of multi-scalar scenarios in the form of a reverse curation-edu-curation strategy, which is applicable to both conventional gallery spaces and as a network of acupuncture activation points in the city. The relevance of the studio lies in the inclusive approach, expanding public access to creative discourse through collaboration and learning. The strategy should extend, challenge, disrupt, provoke and enable human-environmental interfaces through multiple ways of knowing, skills and cultural exchange across the spectrum of society.