An insurgent curatorial strategy: using dialogue and collaboration to create meaning in public art galleries and museums

Abstract

My insurgent curatorial strategy incorporates theory around dialogue and is used to develop a participatory and collaborative process that gives voice to those who are marginalised and/or disfranchised and are suppressed by dominant social narratives. My strategy demonstrates how art galleries and museums can function as sites for community building using participatory and collaborative processes. This article examines an art project that explored how artists, exhibition collaborators and a curator/participant become co-creators in the development of a unique creative/learning process. This strategy asserts that art making process is social in nature and involves the creation of process-oriented approaches using collaboration, and participation between the artist, gallery space, curator and viewer. It is within these dialogical interactions that the viewer can begin to think about ideas, construct new understandings, learn about diverse perspectives and ways of knowing. The article explores a process of art making that incorporates dialogue as part of the creative process and how art galleries can help situate the viewer as a central part of the meaning-making process, explore how this can lead to changes in consciousness, and greater capacity for empathy and responsibility to communities. This article reveals how a dialogic process can help situate art galleries and museums as public spaces that invite participation, dialogue and build community and can be used as an informal learning process.