In collaboration with Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Independent Curators International (ICI) announces the Curatorial Intensive: Developing Infrastructures for Art. This short-course training program will examine curatorial strategies for creatively building frameworks for art—from small-scale collaborative projects to new museums—that respond to the changing needs of artists and new art publics.

The program will look at the challenges that arise for curators working in regions with emerging contemporary art cultures and in institutions in the early stages of development. The Curatorial Intensive will present a range of examples of progressive institutions of different scales and explore the potential for responding to the social and political contexts from which they arise. The weeklong program will address the challenges of generating programs, fundraising, building audiences, and considering how an institution takes shape.

The Curatorial Intensive is designed to immerse participants in a rigorous schedule of seminars and presentations that support the process of developing an idea into a full exhibition or program proposal, and is targeted toward self-motivated individuals—working independently or in institutions—who would benefit from a week of intensive discussions around the issues and questions that arise for curators today.

Seminars, site visits, individual meetings, and roundtable discussions will be led by a group of international professionals that include Magalí Arriola (Curator, Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City), María del Carmen Carrión (Associate Director of Public Programs & Research, ICI, New York), Ekaterina Degot (Artistic Director of the Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne), Kate Fowle (Chief Curator, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, and Director-at- Large, ICI), Koyo Kouoh (Artistic Director, Raw Material Company, Dakar), Sasha Obukhova (Head of the Research Department, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture), Renaud Proch (Executive Director, ICI), and Georg Schöllhammer (Head of tranzit.at, Vienna).

Application deadline: May 19

Application guidelines
12–14 applicants working internationally will be selected to participate in the Curatorial Intensive. The applicant must have at least three years of curatorial experience. All applications must include a 500-word description of an exhibition idea or program that the applicant would like help in developing further. This description should outline the proposal concept and any artists that the applicant is considering for the project. Additionally, a current 250-word bio, a 500-word letter of intent, and a 300-word text that describes a recent curatorial project that has made an impact on the applicant are also required. To apply, and for full application guidelines, visit ICI’s website.

Fees and scholarships
The program fee is 1,900 USD. Additionally, participants are responsible for covering travel and accommodation expenses. Scholarship packages that subsidize or eliminate the program fee, accommodation, and travel expenses are available and awarded based on need and merit. Garage Center for Contemporary Culture will support six scholarships for Russian curators. Scholarships for curators from Turkey will be supported by SAHA. If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please include a letter of motivation with your application.

For more information or questions, visit ICI’s website or email kimberly@curatorsintl.org.

About Independent Curators International
ICI connects emerging and established curators, artists, and institutions to forge international networks and generate new forms of collaboration through the production of exhibitions, events, publications, and curatorial training. Headquartered in New York, the organization provides public access to the people and practices that are key to current developments in curating and exhibition-making around the world, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art. Since it was established in 1975, ICI has produced 128 traveling exhibitions and profiled the work of more than 3,700 artists and curators, working with 478 museums, university art galleries, and art centers in 49 states and 42 countries worldwide.

About Garage Center for Contemporary Art
Garage is an independent platform for new thinking. Through an extensive program of exhibitions, research, education, and publishing, Garage reflects on current developments in Russian and international culture, creating opportunities for public dialogue and the production of new work and ideas. Founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova in Moscow, the institution is building a unique research archive focusing on the development of contemporary art in Russia while pioneering diverse educational projects for families and professionals that are the first of their kind in the country. These provide the foundation from which experimental exhibitions, events, and screenings are initiated.

www.curatorsintl.org