OPEN CALL for curators
"Zin as an exhibition: postcovid."

Application deadline: from June 22 to July 12, 2020.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the State Central Research Center in St. Petersburg with the support of the "Fund for Support of Innovations and Youth Initiatives" in the framework of the 2nd Curatorial Forum announces an open call for curators.

We invite curators who work with socially involved art and artistic research, as well as those who use critical pedagogy methods in their practice.
<how can this collaboration be reformulated and reinvented through art?>
In a situation where meetings with art in the familiar exhibition space of a museum or gallery are extremely problematic and the future of these meetings is in question, we invite curators to think about a new format - a series of mobile exhibitions in the format of printed winters. Such two-dimensional exhibitions can be taken away in the public spaces of St. Petersburg, as well as received "with delivery at home".

For work on mobile exhibitions we chose the zina format due to the fact that historically these small and non-professional DIY publications had two principal characteristics for us. Firstly, they, as a rule, expressed interests and hobbies of certain communities (lovers of sine fiction or punk groups, for example), and secondly, formed alternative ways of knowledge production in culture.

Today, when social contacts are strictly limited and regulated, we want to revisit the practice of zina creation and think about whether our understanding of sociality and commonality has changed. How can we reformulate or reinvent this collaboration through art in this environment and format?
Curators are asked to select up to five artists and to develop a concept for the exhibition, taking into account the specificity of the format. Thematically, exhibitions can work with different issues, and the starting point can be to explore issues of hospitality, collectivity, urban space or affect.

In addition, curators will be invited to reflect on the educational programme around their exhibitions. We are interested in trying to restructure the format of art mediation in a situation where it is impossible to be present together in the real exhibition space and invent new (or remember old) ways to talk about art. By involving art mediators in the work on exhibitions in the initial stages, we want to analyze, among other things, the role of mediation practices in art, their ways of reaching out to the audience and, ultimately, their potential to transform the public environment.

Additional sites for art works will be billboards in the city space and the online platform of the Curatorial Forum. All parts of the project will be linked to each other by "hyperlinks", so we will attract different and new audiences, expand ways of interaction with art and play with online/offline formats.

Curators of the project:
Natalia Khvoenkova, head of the Art Programs Department at the State Art Center in St. Petersburg, program director of the curatorial forum. Curator, art manager, art historian.

Alina Belishkina - curator, artist and teacher. Lives in St. Petersburg and Helsinki. Her current research interests include the effects and effects of curatorial gestures, documentation as an interdisciplinary and speculative type of practice, and the production of community spaces.
<29 June held an online meeting with the curators of the project - on demand we can send video>.
Financing of the projects that won the Contest includes:
Curator's fee
Art mediator's fee
Artists' Honoraria
Zina printing
Placement of one artwork from the project on billboards (1 month)
Organizing the delivery and distribution of zines
Details are in the competition regulations.
As a result of the selection, contracts will be concluded with curators and artists to create projects. Zin exhibitions will be realized in the period from August to November 2020.
3 editions are planned.

The curators of the special project and the organizers of the Curatorial Forum will make the selection.

We are waiting for curatorial applications, in which:
- the project theme will be described,
- artists (up to 5 people)
- mediation ideas
- suggestion on how feedback can be provided to the project viewers

In order to participate in the contest, it is necessary to fill in an application form, attach the additional documents listed therein and send it by e-mail:
info-spb@ncca.pushkinmuseum.art.