[spectre] CFP: Zeszyty Artystyczne: Curating for Planetary Balance

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Marta Smolińska
Date: Mar 20, 2025
Subject: CFP: Zeszyty Artystyczne: Curating for Planetary Balance

Deadline: Apr 30, 2025
<http://za.uap.edu.pl/?page_id=2100>

Zeszyty Artystyczne - Curating for Planetary Balance: Curatorial 
Strategies of Care in the Face of Contemporary Challenges.

Curating exhibitions as  spaces for a creative response to ecological 
challenges is becoming a key area of reflection and experimentation in 
the face of the climate crisis. The rapid changes in the ecosystem 
necessitate  reevaluation  of established patterns of thinking, 
particularly regarding human-nonhuman relationships and our role in the 
environment. Growing awareness of our entanglement with the world 
encourages us to ask questions and take actions. We believe that 
narratives of belonging and new visions for the future should be created 
and communicated through various voices. We are dedicating the new issue 
of Zeszyty Artystyczne to institutional and curatorial strategies that 
address  the challenges of the environmental catastrophe. Our focus is 
on emerging curatorial models inspired by  ecology, dark ecology, 
ecofeminism, actor-network theory (ANT) and posthumanism.

The issue aims to showcase strategies proposed by curators, artists, 
researchers and theorists that deepen  existing theories while fostering 
  new ideas. It is grounded in the belief that nature can teach us how 
to shape culture and that these insights can be applied   in practice. 
Submissions from those observing climate change and its impact on 
institutions are most welcome. Our focus includes  artistic and 
curatorial strategies in the context of these changes, post-humanist 
reflection and interspecies relationships.

We aim to create a space  for dialogue and exploration of non-obvious 
inspirations and metaphors drawn from plants, animals, matter and 
natural phenomena. These might include  fungi, which co-create 
nature-culture networks and, as described by Anna Tsing, have developed 
strategies for survival amid  the ruins of capitalism. Donna Haraway 
also describes life in a world destroyed by the ecological crisis, 
proposing visions of Compost Communities that “stay with the trouble” 
and rebuild relationships with the beings around them. Suspecting that 
we, too, may need to “stay with the trouble”, it is worth considering 
new ways of shaping culture. In the age of the climate crisis, should 
exhibitions be created differently? As curators navigating the 
contemporary art field, how can we learn from compost, lichens, fungi, 
wetlands, ocean tides etc.? What might ecofeminist curating look like 
-caring, entangled and allied with other species?

The division between culture and nature is proving inadequate in the 
face of contemporary challenges. Particularly relevant in this context 
are Timothy Morton's reflections introducing the concept of dark 
ecology, which encourages us to embrace  the anxiety and discomfort 
arising from coexistence with the environment. Morton reminds us that we 
are inextricably linked to nature, including its darkest aspects. This 
idea aligns with Karen Barad's concept of “being-of-the-world” or Bruno 
Latour's belief in the mutual influence of network actors. How can 
narratives about belonging to the world support new visions of curating 
and artistic practices both within and beyond institutions?

Additional questions:
What new curatorial and artistic models can address the challenges of 
the climate crisis?
How can curatorial and institutional practices draw inspiration from 
strategies observed in nature?
In what way can ecosystems, plants or animals influence the design of 
culture?
What examples of ecologically inspired curating can be found in history 
and what is their origin?
What forms of interspecies cooperation can be explored through 
curatorial activities?
How can art and culture serve as space for reflection and action in 
response to the climate crisis?
How can curators and artists foster  dialogue and drive  change in the 
face of ecological disaster?
What forms of cooperation between human and non-human actors can shape 
the future of culture?
How can art institutions adapt to changing ecological conditions?

Text length: 20,000–40,000 characters with spaces.
Deadline for abstract submissions: April 30, 2025
After acceptance of abstracts, deadline for submitting texts: June 30, 2025.
E-mail: zeszyty.artystyczne at uap.edu.pl and marta.smolinska at uap.edu.pl

Detailed editorial guidelines are available at
http://za.uap.edu.pl/?page_id=12

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“Zeszyty Artystyczne” (transl. as “Art Notebooks”) is an academic 
peer-reviewed journal focusing on the broad perspective of issues 
regarding visual arts, humanities and art education. This journal, 
published by the Faculty of Art Education and Curatorial Studies, 
Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts in Poznań, Poland, uniquely 
combines scholarly analysis and critical artistic methods of creating 
and writing. It has been published since 1983, being the only academic 
and artistic journal with such a long tradition in Poland. The 
referential version is the paper edition, which is published twice a 
year. ISSN: 1232-6682


Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Zeszyty Artystyczne: Curating for Planetary Balance. In: 
ArtHist.net, Mar 20, 2025. <https://arthist.net/archive/44858>.