'Together We Curate': Cultural Participation and Collective Curating

Abstract

In the frame of the museums’ reflexive and participatory turn and given that curation has rarely been used as an inclusive practice, the co-curating program 'Together We Curate', initiated by the MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts (Thessaloniki, Greece) after the first lockdown of the covid-19 pandemic, has served as an attempt to break with established theory and practice. The paper discusses the participatory experience of a co-curating exhibition and critically examines if and how such an approach enables curating to become an inclusive practice. Via a practice-led research methodology, the paper reflects on how a radical shift in the institution’s received practices can serve as a vehicle for togetherness, enabling visitors to become active agents and transforming curating into an inclusive practice, possibly opening new spaces for thought and action in the process of democratizing art and culture.

Keywords

• participation, art institutions, co-curating, communities, togetherness, democratization