Over two consecutive weeks in November, I delivered a short online course about Publishing, Editing, Writing. Approaching publishing as an open-ended and expansive ecology in which a wide range of practitioners come together, I wanted to work through with how collaboration underpins what are often perceived as singularly authored projects, without necessarily negating individual voices and positions.
Following an introduction by myself, and inspirational guest talks by artist Katrina Palmer, artist/curator Gavin Wade, writer Maria Fusco and artist/curator Shama Khanna, in which each discussed how publishing, editing and writing operates in and for their various practices, the 24 international participants worked together in smaller groups, They were tasked with developing a collective proposal based on shared interests – a big ask doing that in a short amount of time with people they didn’t know. Participants rose to the challenge though, each group presenting issue-based, timely and considered ideas in convincing and sophisticated ways – their proposals far exceeding my and others’ expectations. Building on my contributions to RCA Curating Contemporary Art Summer Courses and an intensive course on Archives in the previous year, it was fun to devise and deliver the programme with my RCA colleague Rosie Ram. Some groups got on so well that they continued working on their collectively developed ideas (and are apparently still doing so months later…)
Gerrie van Noord 