Paper short abstract:

This paper will engage in discussions relating to power, ethics, and consent by drawing upon a period of fieldwork exploring the nuances of professional knowledge and the identities of contemporary art curators in the UK.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will explore how a period of fieldwork with professionals in the creative sector in the UK, resulted in the navigation of multitudinous knowledge constructs. Through discussions regarding access, confidentiality, and the challenges of engaging with the everyday rhythms of a work place and/or professional landscape, this paper will consider how anthropological field-research design and its subsequent enactment responds to questions of ethics, power and knowledge. Similarly, this paper will consider the role of ethics and consent in relation to the curatorial profession specifically, by discussing how the profession itself contributes to debates about expertise, transparency, collaboration, the nuances of the creative sector, power relations and hierarchies. Contemporary art curators direct social and cultural landscapes through art, and this research will also demonstrate how the role is as diverse as it is creative.