Short Abstract:

As part of the GASCA-Conference, the Working Group Media(anthropology) curates the exhibition “Out of Focus” in selected intervention spaces in and with the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne.

Long Abstract:

The curatorial project will offer space for reflection on multimodal strategies or artistic and anthropological interventions as means of anthropological knowledge production. We are particularly interested in the inquiry of how these multimodal engagements foster commoning processes, thereby creating new forms of solidarity or resistive practices and critiques of power structures. We also seek to understand how they might contribute to uncommoning processes, reinforcing exclusionary and extractivist systems. Here we want to particularly focus on the asymmetries and power relations that play out in these different institutions and systems of work.

Our focus lies on how media practices are involved in and integrated into these processes also within research. At the same time, we recognize that multimodal and curatorial formats also foster/assist diverse forms of knowledge transfer. Such practices often involve forms of distorting, reflecting or reassembling of fieldwork or archival materials. How an they relate to decentral and resistant practices of self-determinant critiques of capitalism and power structures, with the aim of contributing to processes of commoning?

While mediated and digital curatorial arrangements are often seen as reaching out to global and diverse publics and are spreading over a longer period, it is rarely critically inquired which platforms and economic logics all involved actors have to cater to and what alternative methods and open-source tools for sustainable curatorial processes are needed. We are particularly interested in the ways that these multimodal projects question the relation between exhibition space and/as media space, and how we can create new commons through media and curatorial practices. What does it mean to exhibit ethnographic knowledge against the backdrop of ongoing debates on the decolonization of museums and collections? How can scholars develop counter-strategies that blur the lines in different directions? This can for example involve the discussion of multimodal openings of exhibition spaces; or the relation between media, public space and off-spaces.

We invite projects to apply with a concept of max. 500 words indicating detailed technical requirements for the project until 15 January 2025. Formats can be audiovisual or digital projects, films, performances, readings, music, games, objects and collections, (counter)archives, etc. Projects may also be site-specific in that they reflect or be put in dialogue with the neighbourhood of the RJM and surrounding institutions, or with the institution itself. When submitting your proposal, please make sure to include a thorough description of the dimensions of the project you want to display, and the technical specificities needed as well as those you can provide yourself. Since the intervention areas in the museum will be relatively limited, the selection will prioritize projects that closely align with the theme and have emerged from ethnographic research.

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