The curator had set up his office in a small wooden cabin on the edge of the village fields. The cabin office was fully insulated and had sustainable energy panels. It was also wired up for communication with HD broadband linked to an ecological server. Inside the office, which was part library and part seminar room the atmosphere was warm and relaxed, a place to step back and think intelligently about connecting and other concerns. There was no dogma, but the service offered an openness, which directed the client towards a variety of ideas ‐ from craftivism to blogging, musicology to design, visual thinking to the visual arts ‐ that would galvanize a solution for their curatorial concerns.
He was there most days either to meet face to face, or by email via his blog. We were able to ask for advice on all things to do with the curatorial, take part in workshops and seminars, attend special symposiums and events, as well as presentations of projects and exhibitions but initially we needed advice on how we should understand and use this service.
“I am here to help you to make connections in your everyday life, in work or play. They can be philosophical or practical interests they can be physical or intangible outcomes. My service is one of being creative, researching knowledge and of collaboration. Consider it a public service, like a plumber who unblocks the drains, like a roofer who mends the holes, like a computer geek who makes your laptop come alive again,” he said.
“Okay but how does it work? It sounds religious or at least a bit shamanistic.”
“Not at all, more mindful than anything, I am here as a curatorial mentor. I have
some experience, knowledge and skills of curating and its now my chosen role to share them with the community and to help people make useful connections for everyday life.”
“Sounds good, we need this”
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The role of the curator, as comedian Stewart Lee recently put it is ‘like someone stirring turds in a toilet bowl with a stick. If something is being curated it already seems fixed and decayed’1. Nice image but seems like an old fashioned idea of the curator. It is that of the expert in the museum just shuffling around the collection, trying to breathe life in to old artefacts, just like retelling old jokes. This stereotypical view of the curator, especially from someone like Lee, (who’s opinion seems conservative even though he seems to consider himself a radical in attitude and performance) needs some assessment and reconsideration for today.
In fact, Lee is not too far away from the Ancient Roman historical role of the curator as a public official in charge of various departments of public works including sanitation, transportation, policing. The curatores annonae were in charge of the public supplies of oil and corn. The curatores regionum were responsible for maintaining order in the fourteen regions of Rome. And the curators aquarum took care of the aqueducts. In the Middle Ages, the role of the curator shifted to the ecclesiastical, as clergy had a spiritual cure or charge. So it could be said that the occupation of curating ‐ between the management and control of public works (law) and the cure of souls (faith) ‐ was there from the beginning. Curators have always been a curious mixture of bureaucrat and priest.2
But maybe today’s curators need to be doing something else.
In times of austerity, creativity blooms. It could be that creativity is our default survival mode. If we can be creative we can help ourselves ‐ creativity is blooming; it’s the new comedy; the new ironing. It’s now really starting to make an effect in schools, business, government and hospitals. The public services have discovered that creativity in the work and learning place is more economic (crucially) as well as social and definitely political. Being creative leads us to “happiness” and we all want to be happy in our life and work, don’t we? But what is being creative? Is it just about making a ‘thing’ with your hands? Or is it something deeper such as the merging of logic and chaos, and the creation of something new from these seemingly polar effects, as to be creative is also about getting things wrong and making a mess to get things right. Creativity can be just rewarding to yourself, giving a sense that you have engaged your mind and body in the activity and maybe share it with others if that matters.
Sociologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi rejects the classical notion of the ‘creative genius’ and puts forward that creativity appears from a particular supportive environment. He argues that creative outputs appear from individuals who have worked hard over the years to master a particular ‘symbolic domain’ such as art and are encouraged by supportive individual, groups and organisations.3
This is interesting as the core impetuous of curating is a certain creativity, which then needs to be managed and supported to exist and be experienced by the audience. As our creativity evolves in one direction or another we become an identified “expert” in the activity or practice. With the toilet analogy lurking on the horizon again, there is a need to consider how curating, creativity and connecting can make an effect on the community. Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu introduced the term ‘cultural intermediary’ which relates to his comments on the ‘new petite bourgeoisie’, a new faction of middle‐class workers that has grown in size and influence since the middle of the twentieth century. It refers to those workers engaged in ‘occupations involving presentation and representation . . . providing symbolic goods and services’.4 This term helps in one way to identify and define the occupation and role of a number of ‘agents’ within the cultural and creative industries context, who have entered the industry with personal ambition and with tacit knowledge, creativity and skills. In time they have gained specific detailed experience, which can establish but in time weigh down their activities. This term might also direct these ambitions into the status quo, the systems and procedures, which exist in the production and controlled consumption of projects. Any creativity and invention can be quickly absorbed into the over‐organized and staid mainstream. But there is also a convenience to the cultural intermediary title, which implies that there is culture to mediate, a job to be done, which will never end, until culture ends. So the role can be seen as a good thing, helping to organize and connect the activities, while also becoming a unique conduit between the producers (artists) and consumers (audience). There are two ways to consider this idea that the curator is a cultural intermediary ‐ one that
he is within the ‘institution’ and another that he is ‘independent’ or ‘freelance’. Interestingly, Bourdieu also point out that, ‘agents endeavour to produce jobs adjusted to their ambitions rather than adjust their ambitions to fit already existing jobs, to produce the need for their own product by activities which may be initially voluntary… but aim to be imposed as public services’.5 The habitus of a cultural intermediary can be expressed as in‐between production and consumption. Therefore, what is this significant role of the cultural intermediary which Bourdieu identifies?, who is determining that role?, is it given, applied for or is it self-appointed?
Bourdieu points out that this role can be created by the practitioner or adjusted to their ambitions rather than adjust their ambitions to fit already existing jobs, to produce the need for their own product by activities which are maybe initially voluntary, but aim to be imposed as ‘public services’ which are officially recognised and more or less completely state‐funded, in accordance with a classic process of professionalisation. In Bourdieu’s formulation, cultural intermediaries are healthily characterized as occupying a position where ‘jobs and careers have not yet acquired the rigidity of the older bureaucratic professions’.6 Entry into these occupations is usually via networks of connections, shared values and common life experiences. Gaining access to this form of work is less dependent upon a merit or recruitment. Essentially, the much often repeated statement ‘it is not what you know but whom you know’.
Therefore, it could be stated that the cultural intermediary is now an identified integral position in the gap between production and consumption, where a role can be created which suits the ambitions (chosen practice, work load, collaboration, payback) and that is in itself identified as of significant importance in the flow of production to the potential consumer within its field. There is hence a shift from a unidirectional model (artist to consumer) to one where the cultural intermediary is continually making links, looking for opportunities, interpreting and articulating the work of the producer to the demand of the client or audience. Working with these demands brings the creative, economic and social practice (capital) together where one is interdependent of the other.7 But surely today’s cultural intermediary is one who is not only a creative problem‐solver and team player but that their own practice is ‘a way of life’. The importance of their practice to them makes it highly authentic and believable. Most curators (and artists) would believe that their own practice to be their way of life, their métier, or essentially ‘being in our element’8 as Sir Ken Robinson has said.
At this point then what does identifying the cultural intermediary have on our understanding of the occupation and craft of a curator? The cultural intermediary’s identity appears to exist not only in the individual but also in the specialist community connections and collaborators. This observation rings true for the institutional curator, as well as for an independent curator but moreover in any independent practice it is also essential to embrace the notions of cultural and social entrepreneurship. For progress and sustainability of the practice he needs to develop creative models of curatorial practice, not only within the confines of the traditional ‘institutional’ habitus but ones which stimulates the doxa of the curator to benefit our everyday life our communities. By planting the curator into the heart of communities could identify and authorize the legitimate role of the curator, as one who gives socio‐cultural value to our lives.
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The village curator sat down and reflected on the day.
He thought about the discussion at the office drop in session in the morning which had seemed to help a few of the locals with their networking issues of connecting up their craft group to new members. He had given them advice about sharing resources and demonstrators with other similar groups through their micro sites and posters. He also thought about the weekly ecology group coming in energised at lunchtime after their walking trip down to the Harbour and beach. Earlier they had made their way along the bay picking up any materials or items they found; polystyrene, wood, plastic panels, shoes, rope. The group had then continued to climb across the rocks towards the island. But getting there was always difficult but luckily they were able to get to it by a path, which appeared when the tide was out. Once there they had organised a spontaneous exhibition of the items found. Things were categorized in form, material and colour, arranged on the rocks and photographs were taken. Once back in the cabin one of the group downloaded and processed the exhibition images on to the curators online exhibition space. Later in the afternoon he had held a seminar online for his course in ‘Sociocultural Positioning in Curating: Exploring Culture, Discourse, Narrative, & Power.’ This six‐week course had students from down the road and the other side of the world making a creative global interaction from a simple wooden office.
So by the end of the day the village curator then tidied up the teacups and milk, stacked the magazines, journals and books on their shelves, closed down the word processing and internet social networking applications and closed down the computer.
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References
1 Lee, Stewart, Joking apart, [homepage on the internet] 1995 ‐2011, [updated April 2011; cited 26 April 2011], London, The Financial Times Ltd, FT.com. Available from ‐ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a8066bc2‐6b9e‐11e093f8‐00144feab49a.html#axzz1KIVZEgxh
2 Levi‐Strauss, David, The Bias of the World: Curating After Szeemann & Hopps, [homepage on the internet] 2005‐2008, [updated Dec 2006 ‐ Jan 2007; cited 16 June 2009], New York, The Brooklyn Rail. Available from ‐ http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/12/art/the‐bias‐of‐theworld
3 Gauntlett, David, Making is Connecting, The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to You Tube and Web 2.0, Cambridge, Polity, p.14.
4 Bourdieu P. Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul; 1984, p359.
5 Ibid, p359
6 ibid, p359
7 Negus, Keith. The work of cultural intermediaries and the enduring distance between production and consumption, in Cultural Studies, London: Routledge; 16: 4; 2002, 501‐515.
8 The element refers to the experience of personal talent meeting personal passion. Ken Robinson argues that in this encounter, we feel most ourselves, most inspired, and achieve to our highest level.
Iain Irving, 2011
Iain Irving 