Discussion with curator

CLARK is pleased to invite you to a presentation by curator Anaïs Castro, who was selected for a residency at Art in General in April-May 2019. In an exchange with our cultural mediator, Alexandre Piral, Castro will speak about her residency experience in Brooklyn, the results of her research, her curatorial work, and her current projects.

BIO
Anaïs Castro is an art critic and curator based in Montréal and Berlin. She holds a BFA in Art History from Concordia University (2011) and a MSc in Contemporary Art: History, Curating, Criticism from the University of Edinburgh (2012). She worked as Kirsten Lloyd’s Curatorial Assistant at Stills Scotland’s Centre for Photography, helping produced Allan Sekula: Ship of Fools and a group exhibition titled ECONOMY, with Hito Steyerl, Martha Rosler, Jeremy Deller, among others. In the past years, she has curated many exhibitions in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and China. Her most recent projects include Human Factors and Ground Control, that both took place in Berlin this fall.  Over My Black Body, in collaboration with Montréal-based curator Eunice Bélidor, was first presented at Spike Art Quarterly in Berlin in July 2018 and at Galerie de l’UQAM in Montréal in May 2019. The Department of Love was presented in London during Art Night in May 2019 at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts in December 2019. She was part of the inaugural Shanghai Curators Lab in November 2018 and was previously a Curator-in-Residence at Titanik in Finland in July 2017 and a Visiting Curator at BCA in Burlington, Vermont in April 2016. Her essays and reviews are published regularly in esse arts + opinions, ESPACE and this is tomorrow.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT
I am considering my work as a curator as a tool to discuss and engage with issues pertaining to current affairs, such as migration, decolonizing institutions, political upheaval, climate change and the rise and fall of nation states. I strongly believe that the art world does have a special power to reflect on these issues, provided it acknowledges its place as an area that is ‘off-site’ from the rest of the world. The art world is by nature a niche, cosmopolitan, generatively entrenched and disregarded as a network, yet it facilitates international interpretive communities that can critically discuss the emergent properties of 21st century phenomena, subcultures and events. My approach is collaborative in its nature, seeking to establish a conversation with fellow curators, with artists and researchers and with the public interested in these questions. I am convinced that methodological collectivism that is at the basis of my curatorial approach enhances the liberation of complex ways of thinking that have the potential of drastically changing the field of knowledge making / knowledge sharing. This allows me gain new insights into my own research and areas of interest. For me, curating is a valuable terrain of experiment.

This residency is made possible with the Conseil des arts de Montréal‘s financial support, in partnership with Art in General, located in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

**The call for our 2020 curatorial residency is now open. The deadline is December 2. More information can be found HERE.**