A founding member of CONJUNCTION – a public art curatorial collective. As a globally dispersed collective of 25 mid-career and established curators, artists, designers, educators, and public arts practitioners who first met in January 2020 while attending the year-long professional development course Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Public Art at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. We are a fluid collective based on a fluid work dynamic that alternates between individual research and collaborations among members.
We undertook an in-person residency at Cork’s Guesthouse Project in May 2022 and two digital residencies at Gothenburg’s Studio Alight in early 2021 and Biella’s Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto in summer 2021.
At its best, education forms collectivities—many fleeting collectivities that ebb and flow, converge and fall apart. These are small ontological communities propelled by desire and curiosity, cemented together by the kind of empowerment that comes from intellectual challenge. Irit Rogoff
The ‘naming ceremony’ of our public art curatorial collective coincided with the rare interplanetary event of 21 December 2020 known as the Great Conjunction when the two planets Jupiter and Saturn appeared closest together in the sky and visible to the naked eye.
The founding members of CONJUNCTION are Marilyn Lennon, Iliyana Nedkova, Julie Griffiths, Samantha Hookway, Juliette Harvey, Max Rippon, Sebastian Freytag, Sara Brolund de Carvalho and Kerstin Bergendal.
CONJUNCTION SIGNALS
Following an open call in December 2020, our public art curatorial collective ‘born digital’ was invited to undetake a digital residency at the contemporary art project space The Guesthouse, based in Cork, Ireland starting in March 2021 which continued into our first in-person residency there in conjunction with Gothenburg’s own artists-run organisation Studio Alight in May 2022. READ MORE
Delighted that following an open call for applications CONJUNCTION was selected as one of the participants in the UNIDEE Residency: Groundwork for Embedded Arts Practice at Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella from 1 May -10 July 2021. READ MORE
A experiment in eco-literacy, curatorial hospitality, translocal solidarity and digital residency? Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown by Lawrence & Laybourn-Langton is one of the books that our public art curatorial collective CONJUNCTION has picked up for our book club as part of our digital residency at Gothenburg’s Studio Alight’s VR gallery environment from 26 April 2021 onwards.
TO CATCH ALL OTHER SIGNALS FROM THE CONJUNCTION MEMBERS FOLLOW THIS DEDICATED WEBSITE HERE
Top Image above: Conjunction. Visual by Waag. CC BY-SA 4.0
We are more than a collective of disparate voices but rather a group who have learned, developed, and gradually converged our interests while maintaining individual practices. Collectively, we have hosted lectures, case studies and discussions on sustainability, ecology, decolonization, hospitality, accommodation, and cultural and eco-literacy. Physically located across various countries, including Ireland, Scotland, England, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Lebannon, Estonia, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Brazil and the United States, we have only ever met in a digital online space by utilising the tools of the online platform co-operative movement.
As a globally dispersed ‘platform co-op’ of artists and curators, CONJUNCTION explores concepts of publicness and digitality through commissioning, curating and enquiring socially-engaged public art, as well as the use of digital spaces. Our goal is to continue our collective learning and join our curatorial and artistic practices in a physical space, COVID-19 restrictions permitting. We are aiming to construct a digital VR twin hub of a guesthouse where we can protype our programme of hostings and events reaching a global audience beyond borders and timezones.
CONJUNCTION public art curatorial collective, 21 December 2020
ILIYANA NEDKOVA 
Reblogged this on The United Kingdom Twin Towns & Sister Cities Foundation.
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