Affect and Relation within Curatorial Intimacies
ongoing PhD research
Birmingham School of Art
BCU
This project investigates the ways in which emotion and affect can play roles within new definitions of the curatorial. Departing from an understanding of the curatorial as an inherently relational space of knowledges, practices and methodologies, this research combines practice and writing to propose new ways of conceptualising the curatorial. Specifically situating itself outwith institutional mechanics, the research foregrounds queer subjectivities as one component of an assemblage of rethinking a shift from 'independent' curating to 'interdependent' curating.
A Map of Action
in & labels
published by Cooper Gallery
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
University of Dundee
2019
Inherited Premises
published by Grand Union
including writing by Seán Elder, Rami George & Tako Taal
Ed. Seán Elder
2018
A Map of Action was originally commissioned for an international symposium that brought together artists, academics and writers to present work departing from concerns present in the work of Ulay, whose solo exhibition was currently on show at Cooper Gallery.
It was reproduced in & labels, the gallery's periodical, in 2019.
Inherited Premises, was a small publication of writings that found themselves at home there in relation to an exhibition of the same name that took place at Grand Union in 2018.
Inheritance, Associations, Preparations, Severing, Seán Elder. Untitled (the wars in lebanon) Rami George. Halo Nevus, Tako Taal.
Encountering [in Difference]
Summer Writing Residency
Cooper Gallery
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
University of Dundee
2017
Encountering [in Difference] was the name of Cooper Gallery's Summer Writing Residency undertaken by Seán Elder in 2017.
Taking place across the gallery's website, social media, and spaces for critical writing, the material developed reflected upon key questions and debates raised by Cooper's recent programme, as well as intersecting with personal research into collective histories.
Available online here.
To Brent: The Photography of Mark Morrisroe
published in Notes: Letters to Photography
Issue 2
2017
To Brent: The Photography of Mark Morrisroe was an essay that attempted to complicate the roles of community, love and labour in the Mark Morrisroe's oeuvre.
Subject positions and troubling definitions of documentation were explored.
Available to buy here.
Introductions
co-written with Tako Taal
commissioned by Gordon Douglas
published in Habits of the Co-Existent 1 developed with
Newbridge Projects, Newcastle
Platform Arts, Glasgow
Edinburgh College
2017
Introductions was a piece of writing developed with Tako Taal for Habits of the Co-Existent, a project by Gordon Douglas that was concerned with anti-social and non-normative working practices that enact internal criticism within institutions.
The text used several axes of measurement and comparison to consider friendship and working together through references that included personal playlists, plant species and Paris Hilton's DJ career.
Available online here.