‘Curating Contemporary Art’ Seminar Program is hosting the Executive Director & Curator of Protocinema Mari Spirito and as a guest speaker, Abjijan Toto, a curator and writer based in Bangkok and Seoul on the 15th of March 2021. The seminar will be about ‘Managing International Projects & The Importance of Cultural Codes’.
Mari Spirito and Abhijan Toto will discuss co-curating the second edition of 'A Few In Many Places 2021', an upcoming exhibition, as it is in process, to share in practical way, an example of Managing International Projects, and the Importance of Cultural Codes.
'A Few In Many Places 2021' is a thematic group exhibition across five regions, which address re-learning, collective practices and breaking historical cycles of violence. Each chapter is site-responsive, and produced in a format that allows for forms of engagement under various conditions of lockdown or crises, in: Seoul, South Korea; Bangkok, Thailand; Istanbul, Turkey; New York, United States; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Guatemala City, Guatemala. Each installment will operate under a central curatorial directive while responding to its own local socio-political circumstances. Each satellite of the exhibition will be produced by a local curator and feature works by local artists. Reduction of consumption, such as eliminating the need for flights, shipping, and other modes of consumption typical of arts exhibitions, is a direct action toward ending the consumption/extraction cycle.
Attending this seminar is limited by 20 participants. To learn the
conditions for participation in a single seminar: apply@curatingcontemporaryart.org
About Mari Spirito
Mari Spirito is Executive Director and Curator of Protocinema, a cross-cultural, site-aware art organization commissioning and presenting exhibitions and public programs in Istanbul and New York, since 2011. She launched Protocinema’s Emerging Curator Series mentorship program in 2015. From 2013 - 2018 Spirito programed Conversations for both Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach; was Director of 303 Gallery New York, 2000 - 2012, she holds a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston.
About Abhijan Toto
Abhijan Toto is a curator and writer, interested in ecosophy, indisciplinary research, labour and finance, based in Bangkok and Seoul. In 2018, he co-founded the Forest Curriculum with Pujita Guha, a multi-platform project for research and mutual co-learning around the naturecultures of the forested belts of South and Southeast Asia. He is the Artistic Director of A House In Many Parts, a multi-disciplinary festival in Bangkok, supported by the Goethe-Institut and French Embassy, which he founded in 2020. He is also curator, with Mari Spirito of A Few In Many Places (2021), Seoul, Bangkok, Istanbul, New York, San Juan, Guatemala City, a platform for international collaboration and collective practice, conceived by Protocinema. He has previously worked with the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh; Bellas Artes Projects, Manila and Bataan, the Philippines; Council, Paris; and Asia Art Archive. Selected recent exhibitions include In The Forest, Even The Air Breathes, GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy (2020); Minor Infelicities, Ujeongkuk, Seoul, South Korea (2020); Southern Constellations, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana (2019); The Exhaustion Project: There Is Still Work To Be Done, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2018). He has participated in residencies at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; HSLU-University of Applied Arts and Sciences, Luzern, Switzerland and guest lectured at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen; the Sanderg Instituut, Amsterdam, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Monash University, Melbourne among others and is part of the steering committee of the Artist-for-Artist Program. He is a contributor to collective research initiatives such as ‘A Glossary of Common Knowledge’, MG+MSUM (2021) and ‘Under the Mango Tree’, the slow institute (2020). He was awarded the 2019 Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi X, at the GAMeC, Bergamo.