João Laia (Lisbon, 1981) is a writer and curator. Holds a BA in Cultural Communication, MAs in Film Curating and Film Studies and the post-graduate curatorial research programme CuratorLab. He is a contributor of Frieze magazine and Público newspaper, content researcher for the Modern Art Centre of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, and curator of the moving image exhibition of IndieLisboa International Film Festival. In 2012 he was associate curator of Waterpieces – Contemporary and Video Art Festival in Riga. Recent curatorial projects were held at BES Arte e Finança in Lisbon, CCCB – Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Cell Project Space, the Mews and Whitechapel Gallery in London. My background in social sciences has led me to explore the exhibition as a moment where the equation between artistic autonomy and social belonging is tested and enacted by the combined actions of artist, curator and audience. My early interest in public art has evolved towards an understanding of the white cube/black box as a site of tension between private and public spaces. In an attempt to explore the friction between personal and collective dynamics regarding the intimate layerings of the visitor’s experience and of artistic production, I have focused on subjectivity as a means of investigating how the live encounter-event relates to individual frames of reference and likewise how a wider living environment can be recalled, questioned and reconfigured through such moment. In this sense, my projects have explored the idea of cultural production-consumption, conceiving the exhibition as a forum for reflection, investigation and exchange, a fluid space of inquiry via the articulation of different practices that not only incorporate the physical space of presentation into their structure but also and objects in settings such as displays, talks or screenings. These considerations have led me to engage with site-specific especially take into account the immaterial context of the social and symbolical dynamics inhabiting that location. I have been particularly drawn to topics related to history and memory, which I problematise around speculative types of engagement: the mechanisms used to disseminate past and present events hold fictional layers that allow for subjective interactions. My practice looks at these potentialities and aims at creating situations where dominant frames of understanding might be questioned and re-created.

Kim Nguyen (Winnipeg, 1983) is the director/curator of the non-profit space Artspeak, Vancouver (Canada), where she has produced numerous exhibitions and publications by regional, national, and international artists, including Aaron Flint Jamison, Marina Roy, Abigail DeVille, Danh Vo, and Alex Da Corte. In 2009 she obtained a Masters in Art History (Critical and Curatorial Studies) at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Formerly a director and curator at Access Gallery, she has guest curated for the Belkin Satellite, PLATFORM, and the Or Gallery, where she was Canada Council Curator-in-Residence from 2009-2010. Artspeak is an artist-run centre whose mandate is to present contemporary practices, innovative publications, bookworks, editions, talks and events that encourage a dialogue between visual art and writing. Working within this mandate Nguyen continually challenges the notion of language, seeking overlaps between the written word and material communication, while extending the definitions of criticality beyond theoretical texts. Frequent themes in her practice include representations of diversity in popular culture, anxiety, and gossip. She is interested in artists working with vernacular materials to respond to contemporary conditions, with a focus on artists who investigate constructions of identity, nostalgic authenticity, and acquired and invented memory. As well, she maintains an interest in independent publishing within an artist-run ethos, particularly projects that investigate the publication as an artistic medium. Explorations of a sense of place remain a throughline in Nguyen’s work, in particular with recent exhibitions she has curated that look at running away from and returning home, geographic displacement, and cultural appropriation. Issues of class, race, and gender, and their persistent complications and disappointments, greatly inform her practice, and she is committed to extending the knowledge and presentation of diverse artists into a wider discussion of how audiences recognize, integrate, and engage with work that is innovative and progressive beyond its cultural definitions.

Marina Valle Noronha (Brazil, 1981) is an independent curator who lives and works between New York and Belo Horizonte (Brazil). After taking part in the CuratorLab at the University of Art and Design Konstfack Stockholm (2010), she obtained a Master’s Degree in Curatorial Studies at CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson (2013). She has curated several exhibitions and projects at institutions in Brazil and Europe including The Showroom (London), Casco (Utrecht, Netherlands), Moderna Museet (Stockholm) and has recently collaborated with the Museo del Barrio and Abrons Arts Center, New York (2013 – 14). Noronha’s curatorial focus is on the crossings between art, design and theory. She has been emphasizes the relationships between temporary exhibitions and permanent collections, proposing curatorial strategies that connect systems of display to the administrative processes that they depend upon. Curatorial (Systems) Manifesto: On Collecting and Curating as a System Museums and art collecting institutions are not sustainable and are in crisis. When the museum collection is considered to be permanent, museums become larger and less manageable institutions. Museums are not repositories, and to analyse them as open systems ensures them a new form of survival. Curating must internally transform through a curatorial system that aims to stabilise it within the hosting institution, by overemphasising maintenance, adjustment, and equilibrium. A paradigm shift from objects to systems allows a broader approach towards the system of contemporary art. Curating systems extends to the contemporary art economy in relation to domains such as law, science, politics, and so on. Curators’ roles are not defined narrowly by exhibitions making. Collection curating should be more theorised and visible by factors contained in all of these systems. In order to justify the high cost of maintaining collections, they should circulate more often (and thus be seen by more visitors). In order to keep operating, museums need to balance more accessions and deaccessions, as part of collection management. Effective collection management can help the museum in crisis and, moreover, disposals, though seldom used, have a significant role in collections formation. By collecting through balancing accession and deaccession, contemporary art institutions can actually reflect on what we understand as museum and the status of contemporary art itself. It accommodates collections in constant flux of accessioning and deaccessioning artworks, through acquisition, exchange, donation, transfer, exchange, and sale.
Marina Valle Noronha is currently undertaking a PhD at Aalto University.