Curating, currently, is used in a whole range of contexts. There have been references to curating an exhibition, an event, a home’s contents, a book or music collection, the totality of an individual’s possessions, a series of meals, a set of public responses and so on.
Pulling elements from this wide range of understandings of ‘curation’, one can list fragments such as:
- Taking an overview; creating a context
- Creating a framework – a set of organising principles
- Bringing components together in various ways
- Organising with a purpose in mind
- Simplifying, analysing, removing extraneous things
- Creating cross-linkages
- Combining groups of fragments into meaningful compositions
- Deciding the relative values of various components
- Creating access routes, adequate signposting
- Allowing for flexibilities and interpretations
- Opening up possibilities for learning and insights
- Deciding on balances between real/physical; explanatory/supporting; and virtual/imaginary aspects
- Settling on structures and formats of exhibitions/showings of end-products
- Working with a range of potential contributors and supporters
- Finalising administrative and administrative elements
- Letting others know what is intended; what is happening
In terms of the creative undertaking that carries the collective label of R:2025, I intend it to include:
- Curating a set of creative activities that are producing ideas, ways of thinking, written articles, artefacts, seminars and linkages to the work of others – all things that can be gathered together and shown, both in a continuous way and as a culmination in 2025-26,
- Curating myself, or rather aspects of myself – fragments of my life from 2010 to 2025 (drawing on things before 2010 and potentially signposting things after 2025).
