Considering the Role of the Curator with Alana Bartol
This conversation with Alana Bartol was originally recorded in September 2022 for an opportunity that never materialized. We revisited the conversation again in the fall of 2023 to accompany curatorial research for Listening to the Land, an exhibition at The Fine Arts Building Gallery (FAB Gallery, Edmonton, June/July 2024). Copyediting by Zachary Ayotte.
Christina Battle (CB)
I often think about how, at least in this country, many curators come out of art history, and the disconnect I often feel with that when I think about curating as a practice in collaboration with artistic practice. Especially when considering how artists are often not taught or are aware of how to relate to curators or approaching working with them.
Alana Bartol (AB)
Yeah, the importance of studio visits1The New Gallery has a great resource: Studio Visits 101 by Winona Julian is something I try to stress when I am teaching. The artist-curator relationship is such an integral and important one within the arts, and we don’t really learn to think about it or even understand it as undergraduate students in BFA programs. In my undergraduate degree, I don’t remember ever having conversations about how to work with curators or explicit conversations around how to do a studio visit—what kinds of questions might come up or how to prepare or get comfortable. I think more awareness of how to do a studio visit with a curator or even someone who is familiar with your art practice is really helpful for students and emerging artists. Even after my graduate degree, I hadn’t really done many studio visits (outside of school), so realizing studio visits were something I should be actively searching out was important.
CB
Or even knowing who should instigate a conversation, right? I think most artists would never recognize that they could just reach out to someone and be like: Hey, can I do a studio visit with you? Although maybe that’s changed since the pandemic—actually, because there’s more of this sort of feeling like you can connect to somebody quite easily now.
AB
Yeah, definitely. I still feel awkward asking curators for a studio visit!
I want to go back to what I was talking about before about the artist-curator relationship. There has to be some trust there, and time—and you need time to build relationships. Also, wanting to make sure that you want to work with that person is important. What kind of work do they curate? Who do they work with (institutions, groups, other artists, organizations, galleries, etc.)? What is the format (festival, gallery exhibition, public event, etc.)? Who are they in dialogue with? This could relate to institutions, galleries, but also audiences, publics, communities, as well as artists, scholars, theoretical discourse, etc. How will they contextualize your work? How do they communicate with audiences or communities about the work? I think initially, in the beginning, I was not thinking about all of these questions, but I am now. Even knowing what questions to ask—I still have had experiences that were negative or opportunities that didn’t work out and sometimes that does come down to that relationship between the curator and the artist. But like I was saying, I just don’t think it always goes back to that—like, things aren’t always linear either. I think when I’ve tried to create space, whether I’m working with artists as a curator or as an artist with a curator, or even an educator, I try to embrace openness and try to be able to go in multiple directions—to have an exploratory or even an experimental nature to what I’m doing. You can’t always do that. There are always some boundaries, and you can’t take an exploratory approach if the person doesn’t trust you to go into a process and to be able to come out with something. Often people have certain expectations about what you’re doing and making, and I guess I’m kind of talking more specifically about when you’re working with a curator to create a new work or project, or to present an ongoing work that’s already made, and maybe there is not a straightforward way of presenting or facilitating it. And with participatory works, which we both create, there needs to be a relationship of trust between the artist and curator in order to allow the artist to facilitate the work with a community. The curator can play a really important role in how participatory projects get supported, which could include how the connection points between artist and community are made. I think a big part of the role of the curator is understanding different contexts, why those contexts need understanding, and what contexts the artist is working within.2See also Manifesto
Part of the work of curating can be similar to facilitating or mediating, especially if an artist is coming to a community to engage people in a participatory project. How, as a curator, do you properly support artists working in these ways and understand the local contexts? Often artists are already bringing their own understandings of those contexts. They have to in order to understand what they are bringing to a place or community. How can the curator help support the artwork? Is the curator asking what the artist needs? You need consistent, clear communication—which can get difficult when an artist is just figuring things out. They might not necessarily know what they need at the beginning. I think it goes back to developing relationships. If you’re in a relationship with someone, it’s got to be reciprocal, and there has to be an established method and frequency of communication that works for both parties. And I don’t think emails or meetings (online or in-person) are always the answer to better communication. Meetings and conversations don’t necessarily result in clarity.
I was thinking about how you gave me the question that was something like: How comfortable do you feel with the title ‘curator’? And I think there is some discomfort there for me in a way. But I was trying to figure out, you know, why I feel uncomfortable, because ultimately, you know, the root of that word is around care.3 Also see: Kirsty Robertson, Curating in a Time of Crisis, video, 7.14 minutes, ArtLab, 2020.https://vimeo.com/566679501 I think of a curator as someone who has a certain type of expertise or authority in the art world. Sometimes conversations can be challenging between artists and curators or even arts administrators. In working with curators or even arts administrators, there have been times where I have thought: Are we even speaking the same language?
CB
I find this super interesting, and it also raises lots of questions. Because in a lot of ways, when working with artists who do the sort of work that we do—participatory, social, public, political, land-based, whatever—you and other artists like you may have more expertise or “authority” than a curator trained to approach the subject theoretically or academically. Again, I guess it’s a question of what we need curators to do, and by ‘do’ I think I almost always mean something that is active (doing…something).
And with participatory works, which we both create, there needs to be a relationship of trust between the artist and curator in order to allow the artist to facilitate the work with a community.
AB
I think good curators are aware of hierarchies that get reinforced through institutional spaces. They learn to work within and outside of institutions and develop relationships that are rooted in certain values of trustworthiness and openness, authenticity, and meaningful work. And pleasure, so that we can get pleasure from our work.
CB
I think sometimes it feels like that is quite lacking in the arts in general—having fun and enjoying it.
AB
Enjoying the process of making work and doing research. That’s the thing that makes me most excited about being an artist—and also why I really enjoy curating. But with curating, I also get excited about supporting the work of other artists. And I’ve had experiences where I wasn’t necessarily a curator, but I was working in the arts in supportive roles. For example, I worked for the Arts Council Windsor and Region, as a cultural animator, which was a part-time position supported through the Ontario Arts Council. I really enjoyed that job. I supported artists in developing grants and project proposals that were for a particular grant stream, then called Artists in the Community/Workplace, through the Ontario Arts Council.
Artists were not applying for or receiving as many OAC grants as artists in other areas of the province. That particular grant stream promoted connections between artists (of any discipline) and non-arts community groups or organizations, and so, it was a good way for artists to realize collaborative projects in communities. These projects involved collaboration in some form, and often took place outside of traditional gallery spaces. The contract was a year-long position and was determined a success, as several grants were funded, and the number of applications increased. Afterward, I worked as a consultant for the OAC, developing training for the position, and sat on hiring committees as the position expanded to other underfunded regions in Ontario. It was a great position for me because it involved facilitating, making connections, developing partnerships, and mentorship.
I guess I’m thinking of this role because I felt like it prepared me in a lot of ways for curating. A lot of my time was spent sitting with people, listening, learning about their work, finding out what type of project they wanted to do, and trying to figure out what support they would need—not during the project, but getting them to the point where maybe the project could happen because they were going to apply for funding.
Also, part of that job was connecting artists with partners to develop projects with. Some artists or arts groups were already connected to a community, group, or whoever they wanted to develop a project with. Others wanted to develop a project but didn’t have the right community partner. Some non-art groups and organizations wanted to work with an artist but didn’t know what that would look like—so some of the work I did was trying to develop partnerships. It was a lot of going out and meeting with artists, different community organizations, and groups to see if I could help facilitate partnerships. I think all of the artists that I met with were writing an OAC grant for the first time. Not all of them had undergraduate degrees in art. Some didn’t have documents you might assume an artist would have, like a CV or an artist statement. It was a big time commitment for both partners, and on top of developing the idea, the artist would still have to apply for funding and wait to see if the project would be funded or not. It was a lot of planning and development just to envision the project—let alone, write the grant. And most of the time—actually, I would say almost 100% of the time—it was artists who were already in a relationship with the partner group or community that they wanted to work with that were able to develop a strong proposal. This makes me think about the importance of developing relationships and just how beneficial that can be in the long term. I’ve definitely had various experiences with curators where I realized they didn’t even know my work at all. So, why do you want to work with me? Realizing they didn’t take the time to really…
CB
…to even look at your website…
AB
Or maybe they looked but it’s just a very superficial kind of understanding? So, I think the people I value working with as artist-curators are those who share the same values that I do: trust, reciprocity, depth of understanding, openness, the importance of local context, integrity of relationship-building, and process. Also, it just feels more like a conversation— that you feel comfortable enough to get into your work and then have a dialogue, which leads to other ideas. You know, when you’re just talking to this person because they’re bringing up good ideas or questions, or they give you some insight into your work that you didn’t have before. You want that with anyone, but especially, I think, a curator.
In working with curators or even arts administrators, there have been times where I have thought: Are we even speaking the same language?
CB
I have so many thoughts, because you’ve brought up so many things that resonate. But one of the things I’d like to spend more time thinking about is language. When you were talking about discomfort in even referring to oneself as a curator, I was thinking: Aha!—this idea of language being different, perhaps between artists and curators, is so central to what I’ve also been thinking about and could explain a lot of the disconnect that I find I often feel. It almost makes the term ‘curator’ seem untrustworthy, because you’re always wondering: how are you defining it? I’m not sure if that’s the same way I am.
Similarly, the way that you described your job through the Arts Council, I was thinking: Oh, it kind of sounds like the perfect curator for an artist who’s working relationally or with participatory practice. And I had this moment of thinking to myself: Oh, right, but I guess that’s my expectation of what a curator who’s interested in working in that way would be doing. But in experience, that’s probably not the way curators are trained, or they don’t carry that same language. It’s quite rare to work with a curator who is invested in thinking about relational work in the same way that is needed for an artist who is working that way. That got me really thinking about specialization and actually how weird it is a lot of curators kind of just dabble in many different subjects and disciplines, right? Maybe this is actually a structural issue, from the way that our institutions are founded and the way they operate, the ways curators are taught. I feel like we don’t have a lot of curators who specialize.
Maybe part of the problem is the massive speed-up of content that’s happened across the past 10 years or so—the increase in curators overall, as well as the increase in the drive to constantly produce under an urgent timeline. No one is taking the time; everyone is just in constant production mode.
It would make sense to me that, for a curator who is really fundamentally interested in the way that relational work happens, they might spend a lifetime of practice curating and learning and taking time and understanding the way that it unfolds. But that actually seems very rare. And then you sort of end up with curators contacting you about work that maybe is interesting to them, but likely they don’t have the language or the experience or the understanding of what it means for that work to come into existence and how it operates. I’m thinking about just how actually strange it is that we don’t have that.
AB
Yeah. I’m thinking about how after I did the job with the Arts Council, I worked as a program coordinator for a socially engaged artist residency program. It was a supportive role, not a curatorial one, but it involved taking on a lot of different roles—as many jobs in the arts do (I ended up leaving the position because I was overworked and exhausted). Artists were either brought into the city of Windsor, or were already based there, and had pitched socially engaged residency projects. And although I didn’t curate the projects (a selection committee chose the artists), part of my work as the coordinator was trying to figure out what the artists needed to realize their projects. Some of the artists were very experienced in developing socially engaged projects and others had less experience. Part of the work was managing expectations, for both artists and communities or organizations, which can be difficult to do. An artist has an idea, but does the community need or want that project? Even artists who lived in the city might not necessarily be connected to the community they wanted to work with—so, there could be a lot of considerations to work through. Projects might have to change. I remember having a conversation with a curator at the time about the work I was doing, and they said, “Oh, you’re doing the work of a curator.”
CB
Yeah.
AB
And I thought: No, I’m not. Because I didn’t select the artists (or their projects), but it made me start to think more about the role of the curator and what that meant. I was curating some independent projects at the time (this is just over 10 years ago), and I thought: Right, this is part of the work of curating. It’s part of the curatorial labour that happens in order to realize artworks; you work alongside artists to realize their projects. I mean, there’s different ways curators operate, right? Caring for objects, contextualizing and selecting them, but often the curatorial work that I’m engaged in is relational and can move within and outside of gallery spaces. So anyways, that was a moment of realization about the amount of relational work that can go into curatorial work. I also brought it up because after I left the position I continued to work with one of the artists, Camille Turner, who I was working with in the program. We became collaborators and we ended up working on the piece she had pitched to the residency. In a way it felt weird. I was like: Am I really a collaborator on this work? And she said: Yea, you are, and actually the project cannot happen in the same way without you. I had connections in the community and unique insight into shaping the project because I had a different understanding of the local context, as someone who lived there. We had also restructured the timeline for her residency because the structure of a residency didn’t fit with a longer, non-linear process; the project needed more time to develop. And so, there are many things I have learned through working in the arts in roles other than artist or curator. I’ve worked in many support roles within and outside of the arts. I worked as a career an art advisor in higher education, and I worked as an employment advocate with survivors of domestic violence. Even though I was not working as “an artist,” I saw the gaps in systems and would try to find ways to move through or outside of them. That often meant looking for alternative routes and trying to think outside oppressive systems that are racist, sexist, ableist, classist. Today, I exhibit at galleries, and I work at a university. I get supported by the very thing I’m critiquing a lot of the time.4AB: I often thinking of the cartoon of the artist selling their work to the CEO they are critiquing or something like that. Do you know the one? [Editorial note: I couldn’t find the meme, but…you all know the one]. Also see the text: Four Roles Related to Change outlined by George Lakely from The New Jim Crowe Organizing Study Guide.
CB
I mean, that also brings me to something else I wanted to chat with you about. As you’re talking about these other jobs and the ways that you’re supporting and working as an artist, I’m thinking about how a lot of it very much describes artistic practice to me as well. This idea of wearing multiple hats at the same time and sometimes not even knowing what hats you need until something breaks down and you’re like, oh, suddenly I need to learn how to solder stuff, and I didn’t know how to do it—that kind of willingness to adapt and to take on a new role. So maybe that also comes back to this earlier conversation about language and differing expectations with the term curator, which sometimes might be too constricting.
Also just to say that the three jobs that you described all also sound to me like that of a curator. Maybe the job title was: an advocate, a support worker, a coordinator; but all of those roles, I think, are roles that—especially when you’re working socially or with communities, or however we’re gonna define it—are necessary, and are also hats that the artist takes on as well. It really is sort of like supporting artists through those multiple hat changes. And I guess that’s also where conversation becomes so important. Because as a curator, if you’re supporting an artist who’s working in ways that they’re taking on and wearing multiple hats, if you don’t keep checking in, you don’t know what hat they’re wearing at that point and how you can best support them, right?
AB
Exactly.
CB
And, I don’t know, sometimes I get hung up because I know all artists work differently— especially artists working across different disciplines. But I think one thing that is quite common for many contemporary artists across disciplines is really this sense of adaptation and flexibility. You mentioned a sense of working in nonlinear ways before as well. You know, I really disagree with the general stereotype that all artists are bad with deadlines. I don’t think that’s true at all. But I do think that artists often don’t follow a linear pathway in the sense of: I’m going to make a thing and here’s step one, two, and three; creativity just doesn’t always operate that way. And I think there’s a lot of mystery around that for those who aren’t artists. And maybe that’s also something that some curators understand—at least those in my experience that I’ve really loved working with, who have not only had an interest in working in this way but have this ability to behave like artists in some ways. Or maybe they started as artists and then became curators.
AB
Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you’re going into an artistic process, or realizing a project, whatever it is, you can’t necessarily predict the outcome or lay it all out right away. And I think that’s where I have run into issues working with institutions or organizations. There’s always gonna be elements of control or constraint. If you have a curator that can help you navigate that, then you can focus your energy on the artwork. I want to have conversations with curators about what I’m doing and to think about political and humanist perspectives. This is the kind of thing that the artist collective that I work with has conversations about. We check in about our lives before we even start talking about our project because we care about each other, but also because it’s important to know what each other’s capacities are if you’re going to be working together.
CB
And nourishing, right? A lot of the time, I think people who refer to themselves as curators are actually administrators. And I don’t want to make that sound like I’m negative about administrators, because I do really appreciate administration and am, a lot of the time, myself working as an administrator. But I think—you know what I mean, it’s like taskmasters. When you’re trying to engage with ideas that are personal and intimate and political and affective, having someone deal with you who’s only treating you like they’re just trying to check things off of the to-do list to make sure you get a thing in on time is not nourishing the creative process. And I think a lot of artists really, including myself, just really shut down, and then it just becomes about labour. You just do the thing because you know you can and you move on. Whereas “curators,” I think, at least in how I’m defining the role, have a vested interest in similar things and an interest in the intimacy of conversation and of working in this way. I think curators as I’m defining them, have the ability to navigate the taskmasters who are emailing them from the institution looking for things and being a mediator between the two. I think good curators who I’ve worked with—especially in ways that involve, not necessarily just participatory projects, but projects that involve some sort of time and non-linearity, for example, when making new work as you were talking about—I think those curators have also been really good at knowing what rules can be broken and how to help break them from the world they are coming from.
I want to have conversations with curators about what I’m doing and to think about political and humanist perspectives.
AB
I think artists are taught to operate on this kind of notion of scarcity all the time. Like you have to take every opportunity. So many people have said to me: Oh, you have to take every opportunity. Always say yes.
CB
Yeah, yeah. Same.
AB
I remember saying no to something early on and then being made to feel like I made a huge mistake. But part of the reason I said no was because it was going to be an enormous amount of work for no money.
CB
Not every opportunity is an opportunity actually.5Also see: How To Say No from The New Gallery
AB
I think we should just really start thinking about what kinds of opportunities are worth taking, because it’s taken me way too long to learn. It can be hard to say no when it seems like it’s something that will help your career, but I’m learning.
CB
I love it when people say no when I send out invitations. I love it when they say no, and I always tell them so. I feel a responsibility to say: I’m so glad you said no and that you recognize you don’t have capacity or whatever the thing is. And I feel like it makes me feel so much more interested in wanting to work with that person one day because it’s like they know their boundaries. They care about what they do because they’re clear about what they can and can’t do. I think you’re right so many artists ignore that part of themselves and for you know, good reasons a lot of the time, which can often be financial and very real. But I don’t think the ecosystem overall privileges that, and if it did, I think it would be healthier overall as well.
AB
Definitely—I’m thinking about who has the ability to say no in the artist-curator relationship. I’m also thinking about how, once you’re in a commitment, when you’re invested to a certain degree and committed to realizing something and then it’s gone awry or you feel it’s not going in a good direction, and if you think it’s not gonna work—then at what point do you say it is not working?
CB
Yeah. I mean, there are really great examples of artists, often collectives, often American—like no surprise, right?!—who have worked “saying no” into the artwork itself, so that it becomes a really visible, very public response. And I really value those examples as reminders that actually saying no can sometimes be not just something that sort of saves you or makes you feel more secure in whatever situation you’re in, but also a powerful lesson for everyone. It’s a reminder that actually a lot of what goes on in the arts is really fucked up and problematic and shouldn’t continue. Like actually—no!—maybe we should not keep doing that, because it’s harmful.
One of the other things that you brought up that I think so much about, especially lately, when we were talking about how to know who you want to work with, you said something about how you can sort of know from their scholarship or the way they frame things. And I agree, I feel like: online searches! You should learn about the people you’re going to work with beforehand. But this idea of scholarship and frameworks and how people frame things, I think it can be really tricky to know how to trust that these days because so many people write the right things and read the right things and say the right things, but in practice, don’t live those things.
AB
Yeah.
CB
And I’ve been really struggling with how to anticipate that. I think, especially with work that does involve working together with other people, or political issues, or social justice frameworks, or climate change—I really struggle with it. Clearly this is not new, but it seems very trendy to focus on social, political, and environmental concerns now, there’s clearly a zeitgeist for this type of work in the artistic sector in general. I’m also thinking about what we were speaking about earlier: that maybe curators aren’t really specializing in a way, they’re just kind of responding to whatever’s going on all around them. I don’t have any real question or anything about this, but how do we—as people who are invested in things not just for the sake of scholarship—make sense of that when working with curators or as curators?
AB
I’m thinking, and I don’t have an answer, I really don’t. Because you’re right, it’s very hard to know—okay, is this going to be a healthy working relationship—from how a curator or artist introduces themselves or the work they’ve done or their scholarship or who they’ve worked with. I think that I go back to my considerations around when to say no, or when to pull out of an opportunity, because you can be in it and then realize, oh, this is not something I want to continue and then I guess it’s up to you in terms of how you articulate that to the people you’re working with. And there can be all kinds of tricky dynamics to navigate, and language can be tricky to think about. We’re speaking in English, and English is a colonial language. It’s the only language I know how to speak. It’s the language we operate in, and I think of it as a tricky language. I keep getting into conversations in the arts where it feels like there’s all this unspoken stuff that I’m supposed to understand, but maybe I don’t. Especially things around money, I’ll often walk away thinking: Oh, I think I’ve made that clear. And then I guess I didn’t make it clear because, you know, it comes back and it’s like…
For example: if there’s a project where part of the work is gifted to participants or you have multiples, and then the expectation is that you show this project again in the same way but there is no budget for materials required to make more.
CB
OMG, I have come up against similar things so many times as well.
AB
You know, conversations around money are very tricky, or maybe ‘artful’ is a better word to use here, because there is an art to the way these things are worded. For example, a gallery says you are getting an artist fee based on CARFAC, but you don’t know what category the gallery is in (based on their operating budget), or you don’t yet know how many other artists are in a group exhibition to determine payment. It’s amazing when institutions or curators work with you to get a grant so you don’t have to. Those have been some of my best experiences: where the expectation is I’m producing new work, and I want to produce new work, and the institution supports me with various connections and resources, including funding. I can take a long time to make work, and projects can continue to evolve over the years. There are all kinds of things to consider with art creation including fees for research and development.
I was thinking about how one of your initial questions was about positive experiences and I think a big part of that is financial support (research, development, production, installation, travel fees) when working with organizations, because the CARFAC exhibition fees are low and the expectations that artist fees are enough is not realistic, if it ever was.
CB
And when you make new work, a lot of curators are also thinking: Okay, the artist fee can also be your materials fee, or your production fee. But no, that’s actually a different fee.
AB
Yeah.
CB
And maybe this also comes back to not really understanding how artists work or how our work is made, especially when you’re making work that is being given away. You can’t hold on to that and then sell it on a commercial market later (if you want to operate that way); or show it again for another artist fee (an assumption that CARFAC rates are based on), which is maybe how they’re trained to think about it. But that doesn’t mean that’s universal for all artists.
You’ve also brought up the word ‘support’ quite a bit, and one of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about is how arts institutions, like galleries, art magazines, production centers and probably other types of spaces as well, are often funded through Canada Council under the category of ‘supporting artists.’ And I think so much about what that means. I’m not sure those who are getting grants under that category necessarily define it in the same way. I think there’s something really critical about this word ‘support,’ because actually everyone is being paid to support artists in this country. But often what it looks like is not necessarily that at all, or even necessarily a willingness to do that.
AB
Yeah. Yeah.
Long-term relationship building is an important part of this. That’s what you want: a person you can trust and talk to about things. That’s an example of a healthy curator-artist relationship. When you’re not worried about the time something might take to get done. When there’s no pressure to “do another thing” right now and you can think about doing something in another year or two years. When there’s an understanding of what it takes to develop projects relationally—and that it takes time.
I think that also speaks to moving things out of your control. I guess I go back to control because I think where I’ve had the worst experiences. It’s been because someone is trying to control the process or nail it down and there’s already enough of that in the world. So anyways, I guess embracing the scary idea that things can also fail. We talk about failure all the time in artistic practice and the need for failure in order for your practice to change and develop. And so, why shouldn’t we think about failure in curatorial practice (or processes), too? If you can’t trust artists to go through a process in which they might fail, how will anything worth doing get made? The artist is going to come up with something, even if they fail, and from that you can have things to talk about, present, discuss, and maybe even evolve into something better than what it was originally supposed to be in the first place.
CB
It’s so true, artists tend to look to the potential of failure. And again, this gets me thinking about differences in language…
Contributors:
Alana Bartol (she/they) is an artist, curator, and educator who has also worked as an arts administrator, employment advocate, and career advisor. Their collaborative and individual artworks critically engage with extractive industries and examine our relationships with the Earth, elements, and what are colonially known as natural resources. Long-listed for Canada’s Sobey Art Award in 2019 and 2021, they teach at the Alberta University of the Arts in Mohkinstsis (Calgary).
Zachary Ayotte works with images and text.