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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gayle Meikle
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The article explores curatorial polyphony extending from recent developments in curating practices. The polyphonic gesture broadens the notion of polyvocality, a term commonplace in museology (Mason, Whitehead et al. 2013) to describe approaches in display practices that preface multiple narratives.The foundation of this article is Ross and Meikle’s durational ongoing collaborative project called ‘A Polyphonic Essay on…’. This editioning practice presents a live mediated performance lecture on a subject using time-based artworks as their starting point. The project sits within an area of curatorial practice that favours discursive and experimental approaches to encountering artworks. Their method embraces the fragility of conversation, experience and knowledge whereby the performative encounter is shared and produced with all things present (human and non-human), resulting in a lively and agitated space to mediate and support artistic practice. Drawing from five previous editions: A Polyphonic Essay on Intimacy and Distance (2016, Transart Triennale, Berlin); A Polyphonic Essay on Memory (2017, NEoN Festival, Dundee); A Polyphonic Essay on Eros (2018, BALTIC 39, Newcastle); A Polyphonic Essay on Praxis, (2020 Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow); and A Polyphonic Essay on Pedagogy and Praxis, (2021, ELIA Academy, Brussels) the authors use post-human feminist discourse and praxis to complicate the implied human-centric notion of polyvocality to consider the situational factors that make up the encounter between artist/artwork, audience and site. In polyphonic curatorial positions, artwork and audience, material and immaterial, choreography, discourse and silence can coexist as a generative, generous and porous approach to presenting and supporting artists’ work and practice. The methodology agitates and subverts curatorial hierarchies of knowledge, giving space over to liveness, layering, echoes, repetition, dissent, friendship and allyship. As such, the article will voice emerging concerns in curatorial practice, pedagogy and experimental sites for flourishing praxis.
Author(s): Meikle G, Ross A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Makings Journal
Year: 2024
Volume: 5
Issue: 1
Online publication date: 04/11/2024
Acceptance date: 18/04/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2752-3861
Publisher: Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, UK
URL: https://makingsjournal.com/a-polyphonic-essay/
