CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

6th Annual Curatorial Workshop:

Curating Political Art and Politically-Outspoken Artists During Times of Intense Division

Presented by NCAC’s Arts & Culture Advocacy Program

November 21, 2024, 10:30-5:00pm

New York, NY (in-person only–limited capacity!)

Ongoing geopolitical conflicts, an election year, an increasingly polarized public, an uncertain future: the widening fault lines of this present iteration of the “culture wars” are placing greater pressures on curators and museums across the US. Particularly after October 7th, 2023, these pressures have arisen overwhelmingly in the context of the politics of Israel and Palestine.

Amid institutional pressures to provide a welcoming environment for diverse artists and audiences who demand different—sometimes conflicting—things, some institutions presume that to remain accessible to all, they must demonstrate “neutrality” by suppressing any political content and avoid working with any artist who takes a vocal political position. And yet this approach not only restricts the artistic expression of artists, it precludes the possibility of a conversation at a time when it is perhaps most needed.

NCAC’s 6th Curatorial Workshop is dedicated to helping curators meet the challenge of presenting political art and politically engaged artists during times of intense political tension. Through speaker presentations and group discussions led by Natalie Bell (MIT List Visual Arts Center), Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez (MSU Broad Art Museum), Diya Vij (Creative Time), and others, participants will consider strategies to address the specific challenges curators and institutions face when attempting to address politics in an increasingly polarized society.

To join, apply via this form no later than November 3, 2024.

Application process

The workshop is open to early and mid-career curators and gallery directors- both independent and those working within institutions. The workshop is limited to 20 participants.

In the application, each participant must submit:

A brief statement of interest;
A case study proposal (a conflict/controversy the applicant is interested in discussing, whether the applicant was immediately involved in it or not. Due to the nature of the topic and for confidentiality reasons, the applicant may opt to change the names of individuals and institutions).
List of the applicant’s relevant experience.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by end of day November 6, 2024. Upon acceptance, confirmed participants must remit a non-refundable participation fee of $75.

For further information, please contact
Elizabeth Larison: [email protected]

NCAC’s Art & Culture Advocacy Program is the only national project dedicated to working directly with individual artists, authors, playwrights, curators, and other creatives involved in censorship disputes. Launched in 2000, ACAP protects artists’ participation in democratic dialogue by defending public access to their work and supporting artists’ ability to freely express views that might be unpopular or controversial. ACAP resolves controversies through education and advocacy, avoiding the need for legal action.

Natalie Bell is Curator at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, where she has organized recent solo exhibitions of Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Raymond Boisjoly, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Leslie Thornton, Sung Tieu, and Sreshta Rit Premnath, and co-curated the group exhibition Symboints: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere. From 2013-19, she was Associate Curator at the New Museum, New York, where she curated and co-curated over a dozen solo exhibitions and several major group exhibitions.

Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez is a Puerto Rican curator and writer, and currently Assistant Curator at the MSU Broad Art Museum. Previously, she was the 2018–2020 Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and worked at the Video Data Bank and The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. She has collaborated with several film festivals, and was selected to be the Inaugural Curatorial Fellow for the Chicago Underground Film Festival in 2021. She holds an MA in Film Studies from the University of Iowa, and a BA from the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez.

Diya Vij is the Curator at Creative Time where she guides the curatorial direction of the organization including commissions, public programs, and initiatives such as the Creative Time Summit; CTHQ, a gathering space for art and political engagement; and the R&D Fellowship for socially engaged artists. Over the past 15 years, she has sought to critically investigate the role of public art in politics and civic life, working with dozens of leading contemporary artists across various positions held at major NYC cultural institutions including the Queens Museum, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the High Line. She serves on the Boards of the Laundromat Project, Poetry Project, and is Co-Chair of the Board of A Blade of Grass and co-curated the Counterpublic 2023 public art triennial in St. Louis.