CuratorLab 60 credits, 2023

Anders Sunna, Illegal Spirits of Sápmi, 2022 (fragment).
Exhibition view: The Sámi Pavilion, 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2022.

Topic 2023/2024

For the 2023-2024 academic year, we invite you to join CuratorLab led by Joanna Warsza and Maria Lind for collective research and work in and with the north of Sweden. The area making up the region of Norrland covers 60% of the country, and it is populated by about 10% of out of 11 million people. It is part of Sápmi, the territory inhabited by the Sámi spanning across Fennoscandia, between Northern and Eastern Europe.

The Sámi are one of the main and few indigenous people who have been inhabiting Europe longer than anyone else, before national borders were established, and settler cultures became the norm. The area, which is rich in natural resources such as silver, iron ore and forests, was controlled, claimed and colonized by the Crown from the 14th century onwards, a form of exploitation that continues to this day. However, against many odds, Sámi traditional lifestyles, knowledge, craft and music have survived, and are developed and practiced across the north.

Today industrialisation is expanding, with new mines, large wind mill farms, and internet servers being established, while the climate change is palpable, causing problems such as new layers of thin ice preventing the reindeer from grazing. The north is a place where the politics of extraction meet the need to cultivate vernacular ways of being. What do these conditions mean for life in the region? What are the implications for the climate, the landscape, for the Sámi as well as for others living and working there? What can art and curating bring to the table, and how?

The course will be realized in collaboration with Bildmuseet at Umeå University and in dialogue with the institution's long commitment to Sámi artists and the questions of the north. Among the discussion partners of the course are artists Anders Sunna and Katarina Pirak Sikku, as well as Galleri Syster in Luleå and Havremagasinet in Boden.

Under the working title "the North", a group of ten participants will travel to Umeå, Luleå, Jokkmokk, Kvikkjokk, Boden, Kiruna and other places to meet with artists and other cultural practitioners. The trip will take place in early autumn 2023 and it will be followed by three intensive sessions in Stockholm, online gatherings and possibly separate trips by smaller groups to selected locations. In April 2024, the participants will be invited to curate various formats of events - public programs, screenings, performances and/or exhibition projects at and with Bildmuseet and other initiatives across Northern Sweden.

CuratorLab is a one-year international curatorial course at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. We are exploring radical approaches to engagement, contributing to the pertinent conversations of our times, practicing curating beyond exhibition making and applying horizontal learning. One of our leading questions is how to understand — paraphrasing Audre Lorde — our interdependence in relation to our own individual power and creativity? Thus, every year we work on one common topic where everyone contributes in an own way. CuratorLab is open for everyone interested in collective curatorial work, thinking out of the box, and keen to form a solid research group sharing the language of art.

In recent years we performed advocacy as a curatorial form at the Visible Temporary Parliament; co-edited a reader on love and revolution in the legacy of the Bolshevik revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai and re-staged the "Operaist Trial 1977-78" with the artist Rossella Biscotti.

Established in 1999 CuratorLab is the oldest curatorial education course in Sweden and remains a platform open to everybody with curiosity to challenge and present new curatorial practices

We will meet four times per year for intensive week sessions in Stockholm, in autumn, winter, spring and early summer, including two trips, with additional online meetings in-between the sessions.

We welcome you to join forces with us in this endeavor!

Course director: Joanna Warsza, Guest lecturer: Maria Lind
Course Syllabus: CuratorLab KOY030

Language of instruction: English

Entry Requirements
Bachelor’s degree of 180 credits, or higher, in fine arts, art history, critical studies, curatorial studies, architecture, crafts and design, and/or equivalent work experience in independent curatorial practices or within institutions for at least three years. And proficiency in English equivalent to Swedish upper secondary school course English 6/English B. Read more about the language requirements here.

Selection
The selection is based on an overall assessment of the applicant’s previous relevant work experience, motivation, project proposal and portfolio, and possible interviews.

How to apply to CuratorLab

1. Apply at universityadmissions.se (for Swedish speaking applicants: antagning.se)
When applying to Konstfack you submit an online application to the Swedish central application website www.universityadmissions.se (antagning.se for Swedish speaking applicants), and send qualifications to support the entry requirements to universityadmissions.se (antagning.se for Swedish speaking applicants).

2. Upload files to konstfack.se
You will also need to upload files electronically via Konstfack's website. These files will be used in the selection between eligible applicants. 

Submit one (1) PDF file including to konstfack.se:

1. One page of written bio, including your interests in the topic

2. One page describing possible ideas for your collaboration-contribution

3. Documentation of relevant working experience (max 3 pages)

Technical specifications
File format: PDF
The PDF documents must not be password protected.

Note that the project proposal functions as a presentation of your ideas and fields of interest, it must not be realized in this exact form during the course.