Mx.D.P

I got an email today. You know, the kind that makes your heart skip before you’ve even opened it. I was shortlisted; there were three places, and I was number 4! If you are confused and think this is the NTU PhD, no, this is an opportunity for an online course paid for by the UAL Student Union.

This was a second email saying, ‘Cougar bugged out’, so now I’ve got their place… sorry more Top Gun references… you really need to watch those movies to understand my blogs… anyway I’m on the course!!!

As I am about to deliver a workshop this weekend on AI and social media I asked hyper-write AI Agent, to write a blog post for me… it didn’t mention Top Gun

“This isn’t just any course. It’s a chance to dive deep into how we present and preserve queer art and culture in our cultural institutions. For someone like me who’s always felt the disconnect between traditional museum spaces and queer experiences….”

Stop, stop for the love of gawd how dare it assume… so it went on with more rubbish and assumtions about the queer experience.

So, skipping that, I’d say this is a cracking opportunity, and I’m going to make the most of it. I have to give feedback to the SU and fellow students, which I am thrilled to do. It’s every Wednesday for 2hrs, 7th of May to the 4th of June, and there are assignments and readings each week … cool… the course is called,

Queer Art and Queer Curating

with Sylvia Sadzinski

This is the programme:

Week 1. Introduction

• Introduction to the program and course overview.

Week 2. Theory: LGBTI+ or Queer? (thats interesting isn’t it!)

• key theories and texts
• politics of visibility and representation and beyond
• intersectional approaches

In this week, participants will learn about the essential theoretical and political foundations of queer theory and queer politics. The goal is to understand that queer theory aims above all to describe ‘normal(-ization)’ as a social mode and also to criticize it as a power structure. (yesss have at it!!!)

Week 3. Art Practice: Revolt They Say

• key artists and works
• artists’ queer tactics and concepts
• queer as a political and institutional critique

Week two will introduce participants to some of the most important artists and works dealing with queer topics and approaches. It will present a wide range of queer art practices from diverse social and cultural contexts. This section will show how artists have used the concept of queer as a tool for critique, as a mode of resistance, and to expand notions of art by visualizing the nonnormative and alternative approaches to social action.

Week 4. Case Studies: Queer(ing) Exhibition-Making

• important exhibitions and venues
• discursive exhibitions about AIDS, identity politics, desire, kinship, etc.
• exhibiting contemporary queer art

By looking at exhibitions and venues, week three will focus on how queer activist, artistic and epistemological tactics manifest in cuatorial practices. This session helps to gain an understanding of topics and approaches that have been at the center of queer exhibition-making since the early 1980s and what unites and what distinguishes them.

Week 5. Curatorial Practice: What is Queer Today Might not be Queer Tomorrow (true, we are a fast paced bunch!)

• concepts, questions and limitations of queer curating
• approaches to queering exhibitions and collections
• queer art mediation

In the final week of the course, participants will reach an understanding of queer as a pluralist and constantly renewing concept. They will reflect on potential tools and the limitations of how to re-engage them in their own future practices. Participants will develop ideas of ‘queering’ regarding curatorial concepts, collections, personnel policies as well as queer art education.

How chuffing cool is that! ya missing out cougar…