„Curator as Radical Caretaker“

Didem: I've been planning to speak about curator as radical caretaker, but women in Iran risking their lives in the street, protesting their right not to wear a hijab. I think it's a very important moment. So I decided to open my talk. Appreciating a brave Iranian woman in the streets. This is something that we cannot imagine here in Germany. But being able to risk your life to make a decision over your body is not easy. So I'm very, very touched by the solidarity among women doing that. This is why I would like to start today to speak about an artwork by an Iranian artist, Nin Hakim. And interestingly, Nin lived in Karlsruhe for a little while because she was an exchange student from us to come to Ks Academy. Actually I emailed her and I was telling it all and I decided to show one artwork of her and soon we will see video documentation. But before that, I would like to also read what she sent me with the artwork, the piece is called placeholder:

“The wing of an airplane buried in the ground is adorned with mirror work. Airplane wings too are recurring motif in my work. They allied to the crossing of borders of the physical weight and have to objects or people moving across space in press holder, the airplane wing across severed from the rest of its form seems to be transforming into refracted light, giving the piece a playful sense of mysticism. As if to suggest that within any object, if you look deeply enough, you will see yourself. It alludes as well to the invisibility of the immigrant step back, far enough and the mirror work hides the entire enormous form in a reflection of its environment, get back up close and there you are again.”

I want to say also a few more words about this work actually sent by Nin. I'm actually voicing her right now for you:

“Another aspect of this type of work is shaped by the philosophy of the 17th century, Mystique Mulla Sadra who viewed existence as being at one singular multiple and unified, the broken mirrors transfigured into something far more fast and far more beautiful than the sum of its parts. The remnants of the objects shattered and scattered remain. But together they suggest a more abstract assemblage coloring is bled out and leaves an equally disorienting and dazzling array of light and reflection. The concept here is appended, decorating an object that was creating for movement and specifically movement across borders in the air where national geographic and physical boundaries are more porous. All of this suggest the third doctrine of Mullah Sadra to thought that all individuals in existence undergo motion and flux.”

I would say being it here specifically. Also, I would say the structures also undergo motion and flux at each instant. All existence is new in time in this sense. According to one writer, Sadra, I think this part is very important privileges becoming over static immutable being. It is so fascinating to me how the traditional geometrical mirror work usually represents to the viewer.

So let's start with the radical caretaker starting from machine. Before I start to speak about what is a radical care, what I mean by radical caretaker as a curator, I would a little bit like to speak about what I understand from curating and how the role of the curator is changing before the caring aspect.

So the curator is something that in the past years has been discussed very much, but also the position of curator come very much forward in the art world. And I think one of the reason is that because the art is becoming more and more discursive and you need more and more this kind of middle person who is managing everything in between. So in one of the latest books about curating, the new curator is the name of the book. By the way, the curator is defined as researcher, so institutions and researching and of course, independent researchers commissioner, which takes us to specific new contexts keeper, which refers to museum keepers interpreter. So a person who kind of creates a new meanings, producer and a collaborator. So these are the new positions that is being discussed next curator. But I would like to suggest that another new position of curator is a caretaker which I don't think that we are discussing enough. This is why I would like to speak about what it means to be caring for each other and caring for the artists and caring in the context of exhibition making.

One of my first critique about curating is that it's really often forgotten that it's actually all about artists. It's incredible. There is so much power going on in the exhibition making practice that the curator is so much kind of this star position that the curator is the ultimate decision maker. And it's easily forgotten that actually exhibitions are made because of the artists and that the curators often forget that they are completely jobless if there is no artist. And I think we really came to this point as if almost curator is more important than the artist. And this is something that I realized more and more in the last four years because I have been working in institutions mostly in Germany.

And since 2019, I started to work as a freelancer, which I think brought me here because I start to question and challenge the structures in the art institutions, especially how everything has been made contextualized and discussed and prioritized.

I can even tell you like a small anecdote. I just created an exhibition in Istanbul in an institution. And there have been 17 artists and one of the artists gave me a positive feedback that she appreciates so much that I gave so much time to discuss with her. And she was telling me there are curators who don't speak with the artist while doing the exhibition. So this was also becoming clear to me that how communication is also very important. It's not that the artist is only paid fairly but also fair, fairly treated. There is so much invisible labor in terms of curating where, artist is hurt and listened.

This is of course, also part of my talk, which I became a mother and how being a mother also kind of made me realize the labor of caring and the importance of caring in a quite different way that I was not expecting at all. And I learned from female energies and how I took this knowledge and use it in my profession.

But before that speaking about the structures in curating, another thing that I noticed lately is that there is so much classification that we learned from traditional art history, but also traditional science that we tend to put things in label and put people in boxes. And that also includes curating that we are so easily saying “Oh it's a feminist curating” or “Oh it's some diversity work” and that there is like labels that are also becoming so much popular. But then at the end, those labeling are so empty when you look at the action. These labels are becoming almost like a fashion brand. Also when you look at the last trends in the art world. I'm sure if you Google afrofuturism and contemporary art or filmmaking, you will come thousands and like hundreds of projects.

How to deal with these labels? Because they can be very dangerous that a lot of things become like fashionable and then soon it's forgotten. Therefore it's very important to be aware and not to work with the topics just because they're fashionable, but to really understand them and to really internalize them.

I think even as an audience, when you go to an exhibition that is politically engaged, not to really looking at how the things are represented, but kind of like see through the whole project.

I was speaking that the how care work is also fundamental part of curating. And here I would like to have a quotation by Greek curator Iliana Fokianaki who is the founder of the state of concept in Athens. So she wrote just about care itself. The German translation of the word is complicated. Heidegger is careful to make distinction between Zorger care and Worry, be on care and concern and F Zorger care and solicitude in his 1927 magnum opus time and being he seems interested in a vague moral aspect of care as an individual characteristic. His famous concept of design, the experience of being that is particular to human being is a being with others. However, my reading of his work sees him failing to escape the individualist idea of care as an act of duty, an act of individual labor in relation to others or for the benefit of others perpetuating orthodox academic legacies of a Eurocentric Western philosophical canon. In this sense, the ethics of care is understood from the singular unit, the individual and her relationship to others. It is positioned as an impetus of concern, as labor, as self-improvement and even as the spare yourself of someone civilized. However, care is never conceptualized collectively as a state of society.

So what Iliana Fokianaki is highlighting here is this care label seeing as duty is kind of part of this heroic Western philosophical view. But today, when we are thinking about care, it's so much more than that and it's so much about solidarity and the act of care as a collective as a connectivity.

And this is also why I wanted to start with Nin Hakim because when I come here, I also question, well, we are very privileged to speak about curating today while other women are risking their lives in the street, we cannot be with them, but at least we can be their voice.

To see curating as an act of solidarity, and I'm not speaking about really politically engaged. I'm not talking about specifically about political art, but the way you work and the way you communicate with the people with the artists and with the cleaners with the whole exhibition team. And I think this is something very much forgotten, and this is why institutions become very toxic and patriarchal spaces you go in there. We also saw how bad collapsed altogether in in the past years, right? This is why we need more new structures to invent the new structures and to discuss about the problematic and also ethics of coming together and caring for each other.

I want to come a bit personal to speak about this topics from a very individual perspective. As a curator, I've been aware of this problematic and I'm advocating for a more ethical ways of making exhibition. I become a mother last year and that also made me see how again structures in the art system are quite toxic and patriarchal.

So it's the whole process started when I realized that I'm pregnant. And the first question it comes, what should I do next? Should I hide the fact that I have a belly now or that I wouldn't get any trigger perhaps? How should I live around it? How to now cut my professional life and the personal life. But I decided personal is political and I say I don't care if I'm not gonna get any freelance work because I'm pregnant. Then I said, well, just then fuck it. I don't care. And that was the whole beginning. Then I also realized that there is a little bit anger there because there is so much internalized patriarchal voice that you have to make a choice, right? There is this kind of romanticized idea about like a single artist or curator who is able to travel and do everything and that we are kind of thinking that being married or having a family or having a child would completely stop you doing what you want to do. And I noticed that while I was pregnant, I had more time for myself for the first time after a long time. And I realized that I have a lot of female energy that I have been probably pressuring because to be able to function in a world that is kind of telling you to appreciate, to act like a man. Be logical, be less emotional, don't show your emotions. And that there's so much labels that we're actually learning. I think since childhood, that almost to think like a man is something really cool. And that pressuring the female energies that would be more chaotic, that would be not appreciated. And I learned all this while I was reading about the history of birth. The birth itself is completely done by a female body and female hormone and our grandmothers gave birth at home. Absolutely with no medical help, mostly midwives. So the birth was taking place mostly by women and at home. And those births were mostly not complicated. With the invention of the medicalized birth, women became more and more passive and mostly male doctors became more and more active. Lately it's also argued that the women who are giving birth in hospitals are feeling much more pain because they don't feel in control anymore or because the women are getting more and more away from the inner female energies to be able to compete in the work life and that they are not able to give birth in a natural sense anymore.

You may wonder where is it meeting now with the curating? For connecting with myself, I needed this pregnancy to be able to be more aware of female energies. I don't need to go on confirmation from the institution from the outside and this kind of decision-making process. And that can also come within me. I think this is something that all of us needs to hear. At the end my inner voice matters the most and not pressuring or what the society expects you to do.

Since I became a mother, I think I start to make more interesting exhibitions. There is this exhibition which we made in Stuttgart “Mother's Warrios and Poets”, which again, I learned a lot. Hanna Cook is among us, one of the artists of the exhibition. And now it's gonna all make sense is that in this exhibition, not all artists were identified as females. So the artists there were also queer artists who were parenting. So what do we understand for mothering is that you don't need to get pregnant or give birth to be a mother is that you can also mother yourself because the act of mothering is actually to be caring. It's a pure care label, unconditional care label and we should all be mothering ourselves first. I would even like go far and saying, we are all mothers when we're carrying ourselves, when we're carrying our sisters and brothers, when we're carrying our friends, when we're carrying plants and animals and that it's not dependent on any sex.

At that moment, I stopped seeing myself as a female identifying mother curator. It all stopped because you can be a non binary person and you can still choose to be a parent, but you can also be a mother by having a garden or just having some plans or caring for family and friends. And this idea also really freed me.

From the motherhood, I could come more to the topic of exploitation, which also happens a lot. Unfortunately, in art system and art institutions, which is where the exploitation of labor becomes very normalized. And I think this kind of like female and mothering and caring energies when they are becoming more stronger, you automatically become more aware of invisible labor.

I recently gave an interview in Turkey about my curatorial practice. And there again, I was speaking about this Invisible Labor.

And in Freiburg, some years ago, I made an exhibition and we had a small booklet and in the booklet in the first page, of course, there was the name of the curator and name of the artist. I suggested, hey, we should write the name of the technician also because he put so much work. It was a video installation. And I asked the assistant curator who was doing, preparing with me and we had the technician name in front and then somebody said, wow, it's the first time that we are seeing a technician, then you put it in front of the whole thing. I said, yes, of course, because without the technician you wouldn't be looking at it. And I think this invisible labor like also mothering in society. Because when you see a female identifying person caring for a child. Oh, it's anyway, her job and then when a male identifying person doing it, it becomes oh such a great father, which is something typical.

If we really switch this mind and applied to the art institutions and that it's the curate or the artist in the middle ground, no, it's not. We are all in this together and that the names should be equally mentioned. Also the people who are cleaning and the people who are serving and making the tea and everybody involved in curating and in exhibition-making. And if we really come to this point that it's not only in the spoken words, but really in our action, I think that we can create altogether hopefully new structures. So I think I would stop here would like to have maybe an open for a conversation. I would like hear your comments or questions or anything that concerns you or maybe you found something problematic, which I said. So we can also have a discussion. Thank you for listening and thank you for hearing my sick voice.

Publikum 1: Did you already talk about that in institutions? And if, yes, what was the reaction?

Didem: Well, you mean, while I was working in an institution or? I was at Barstad Theater and some years ago, maybe three years ago, there was an exhibition, oh, that was really bad. There was a film program at the Kamma N Kazu. And it was about racism in Germany Grass in Deutschland. And there was not even one person with Mira in the team and that's when A UN F I died. The film program was really dealing with the racist politics and the whole NSU and it like so politically, deeply engaged topics and I found it really strange that really white curators could just take all the decision. And this is what I'm speaking about. Curating brings a power. You are deciding what is shown and discussed. They had a collaboration at Bali and it was a very interesting, the program was really interesting and there was a discussion and uh but I asked the question, institutions can also be problematic. And, and of course, there were rumors about, you know, the people who are not unhappy at the stat theater. And I asked the question, like, what do you think about, like not having any person in the curatorial team with their in the curatorial team? But you are working with the topic. You can't just justify yourself because you're working with. Just topics that are dealing with it, but who is involved in the decision making. And the curator felt really ashamed and he almost apologetically to answer the question. And that was a really good moment. So some people really clapped loud and there was this politician Ferda Ataman and she later on approached me and said that was a very good question that you asked. I think we should be more confrontative and not being afraid to be judged. I think that was one of the institutional moments.

Publikum 2: To come back to the trends, sometimes institution critique is also a trend. So how is the feeling? Did some institutions invite you to have a critique? Is it kind of a trend to invite somebody who is criticizing? Are not?

Didem: I think it's a good thing when critique becomes trend because this is how I think we can all learn from each other. Even when I was just ending my talk and I was like, hey, if there's anybody think that there's something problematic that I said, let's have a discussion. I don't think it happened yet. I was invited to write articles in discursive art magazines. But also gave interviews about it in Turkish and English. I feel like when people approach me that now they come to me with the knowledge that it has to be fair. Otherwise there wouldn't be collaboration I think and that’s important that to be evoke that it's not labeled or just to stay in the words, but to really put in an action and this is something because we do live in a world that is very contradiction. You can really speak for hours. But the way you act is very different.

I was also at the party of Istanbul Biennial, there was a group of young artists and young curators. This was again the topic and I was telling them, you know, I stop listening people what they say, I only judge people the way they treat other people and especially treat the people that they would be have no zero favor from. And that they wouldn't have any expectation that they wouldn't have any support or empower me or any benefit relationship. Just zero, like how you treat the people that wouldn't be beneficial for you. And that's not my only judgment

Publikum 3: sounds great.

Publikum 4: Um So now you have experienced a time with freelance curating and I wonder, if, you care better or different in a different way as an independent curator or is it a difference to work in an institution?

Didem: I recently worked with an institution again and coming back and forth was very helpful because I have been in institutions in a very long time and I have been in these institutions, not as a curator position. So I was either as an assistant curator or like voluntary art. It's kind of more like you are still benefits, but you are kind of a maker door enabler. And the freelance curator in that sense enabled me to be like empowered myself to establish and accept it as a now the curator without any confirmation. But now I’m working again with institutions that I'm more aware of the time of others. And that the institution is just there actually to help you. The institution should just give you the money, the space just do it and, and that's it. And that the institution is not the owner of the artwork, institution is just there to be able to do things and that's it. I think that kind of puts a kind of a healthy relationship.

Of course, every institution is different but I'm mostly speaking about the toxic ones that are using the power that they have to exploit the artists. And that unfortunately happens a lot. So I worked again with institutions because we have to pay our rent and the artists need to get visibility and we have to keep making exhibitions again in and outside institutions. But I'm much more careful when I'm dealing with the budget. I'm making sure that the artist is treated, for example, in the contract. I signed a contract for the exhibition that I was making. And there was a weird thing in the contract that I'm giving all the rights to the institutions for the circulation of images. I was like, you can't do that. Like the artists are working with the gallery, you can't just have all the rights. So I think we have to like more kind of to say “No” to the institutions because that they have this power, they are kind of in this position that they can just treat the way they want. It’s important that we as collaborators also challenge the structures as much as we can. And I think it's important also to take risks if you get fired or if you get kicked out from a project just because you are asking questions, then it's not the right context.

Publikum 5: I like that you mentioned the fact or that you applied the concept of curation also to like curating for oneself. However, I think you were mostly talking about the art system in general. You can probably apply a certain sense of curation also to other domains, media or journalism for instance. One can say that in recent times, there was like a movement of self journalism and social media and fake news and all that kind of stuff. So there is a rising acknowledgement maybe also to curation in a certain sense of media institutions, whereas there is also criticism. Do you see any similarities concerning your notion of issues of curation and so on, among different disciplines, maybe also other disciplines?

Didem: If I would go on, I would actually come to the point because, and I would like to answer your question, maybe this example that I was already planning to mention. So here we are looking at a picture that is so much circulated on social media. It's actually by a German photographer., It's a photo of a family kind of a Gastarbeiter, typical Gastarbeiter from the seventies. And when the vaccine founded in Germany by two people with a migration history, this image began to circulate as a good migrant. So there was this kind of glorification of the good migrant and it was completely fake. That is kind of a racism in a kind of unexpected way. When we think of racism, I think in Germany, it's mostly understood that you're not giving a space to a black person in the bus and that's racism or you can't sit with us. There's so much micro racism also which happens like in this example. So I think there are so much similarities in editing and curating and also the use of social media but also the mainstream media. And yeah, I hope this gives an answer to your question. So there's so much similarities.

And of course, a lot of people and their intention is good. They fall for the trap. So it's really good that we took those like cast a bit. Isn't it nice? Now? They are doing something really benefit for us. And that is kind of a self confirmation rhetoric that at the end of the day, at first, it looks so innocent and cute, but actually it's again very patronizing and it's very superior which then I will come another photo.

This is by a Berlin based photographer, Jasper Ketner and he photographed families who lost their family members to right wing terror in Germany. And here you see family and the sisters that they lost their family members. This is also something that you would rarely see in the mainstream media. But you see it in the context of contemporary art. So there are, of course, also things that the different disciplines should learn from each other. History.