“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Curators of Scholarship

Academicus Squawkaloticus, frequenter of parks in Sydney

Every scholar or group of scholars should have a curator, just as a band has a manager. Parrots such as myself are only good at squawking our particular squawk in whatever tree we find ourselves.

In Australia and New Zealand I happened to be surrounded by three excellent curators. Two of them were also scholars so somehow they had managed to straddle both roles. I'm talking about Douglas Kahn, Sophie Jerram and Jill Bennett.

What a fine group of people. How refreshing to hang out with them. They were about curating ideas, not competing for who has the loudest or sexiest squawk. They were so well connected, and so urbane. I was floored by how creative and smart they were.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tim, yes, agree on this absolutely. At the upcoming workshop Eco-tone 1: Object Space Entanglements at Nottingham Trent University we have two ‘curators in action’ for the day, Mary Conlon of Six Memos from Limerick City Gallery of Art and Alfredo Cramerotti of Intellect Books and Quad in Derby. The aim is to curate ideas and objects on the day towards the future event Eco-tone 2.
Perhaps we should have a curator in residence for Eco-tone: object oriented philosophy and the aesthetic dimension event at RCA, 30 June?

David R.