Twelve Curators, One Project

Imagine how difficult it would be to write a perfect poem. Now, imagine how difficult it would be to write that same perfect poem with twelve writers, twelve opinions, and twelve distinct points of view. Can you imagine curating an entire exhibition that way? This describes the experience of co-curating The Second Hand.

The course provides the students of the MA Curating the Art Museum course with a unique opportunity to curate an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery. Even more unique, however, is the opportunity to work collaboratively as a group of twelve equal curators.

A typical curatorial experience would also involve working with a large team, but in that case each member of the team would be allotted a specific role or function as their primary focus.

For our exhibition we also allotted a separation of tasks. We split into groups: Liaison, Installation, Press and Marketing, Text and Interpretation, Events and Public Programmes, Budget, and Project Management. However, unlike the typical curatorial experience, each of us, in addition to our other roles, were also full co-curators of the exhibition.

This unusual separation of curatorial tasks, or lack thereof, meant that each of us selected works for the exhibition, discussed their placement in installation, wrote labels, and had input into the final products for which all of the roles above were responsible.

As one may imagine, a project with twelve individuals and no hierarchy led to extremely long meetings. We kept the process as democratic as possible, having lengthy discussions and often making final decisions by calling a vote to determine if a work or a decision passed by majority.

Standing in the space, after all the works were unpacked, I was struck by how much the exhibition represented each of us, our interests and input, individually, as well as reflecting our group as a whole. The Second Hand looks the way it does due to each of our contributions, as we worked together to represent our chosen theme.