Conference

To help mark its 10-year anniversary, BAN’s annual conference for 2022 explored a decade in British art curating, offering multiple perspectives on curatorial practices and knowledge production, reflecting on the material and social forces at work since 2012, and exploring the innovations and missed opportunities we’ve seen over these years. Referring to the archive of cultural activity in 2012 itself as a point of reference and engaging with an expanded view of the curatorial field in the decade since, the programme offered timely reflections, questions and challenges for British art curating now.

The conference comprised a programme of three guest-convened sessions, a roundtable discussion and screening, and additional tours and visits. For the full listing see Appendix A. The guest convenors were Sonia Boué, who chaired an online session focusing on neurodiversity and changing attitudes to difference in the field of art and curating, Bryan Biggs whose live-streamed live event at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, explored regional and global perspectives in curating over the last decade, and Victoria Walsh, whose live-streamed and in-person session at the RCA Battersea addressed changing forms of curatorial knowledge. The roundtable at Tate Britain, also streamed, was chaired by BAN Convenor Martin Myrone and featured Tate directors Alex Farquharson and Helen Legg, Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph ABP and Sophia Hao, Director of the Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee. They shared their own memories of 2012 and their thoughts about the major changes and developments in field since, and reflected on the relationship between art history and curating, the role of institutions, the curatorial and the paracuratorial.

As part of the conference programme, BAN was pleased to commission the Bristolbased filmmaker Niyaz Saghari to create a special film reflecting on the conference themes. BAN-Unravelled features a tapestry of archive footage, and in-depth interviews with Tony Heaton, Mark Sealy, Alice Correia, Victoria Walsh, Bryan Biggs, and Sonia Boué. Candid, engaging and thoughtful, their recollections and reflections provide a richly textured sense of curatorial practice over the last years, from the perspectives of artists, curators, academics and activists with a wealth of experience. The film is freely available online, in a shorter and an extended version, both with the option of captions and BSL. The extended version premiered at Tate Britain during the conference session on the 24 November, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.

Day 3 of the conference, at Bluecoat, Liverpool, with on stage (from left), convenor Bryan Biggs, and speakers Mohini Chandra (Falmouth University) and Skinder Hundal (British Council)

Recorded content from the conference sessions will be released on the BAN website in 2023, alongside new essays from the BAN Convenor and session convenors, and an online resource documenting the year 2012 in curating, in the form of a searchable calendar of news, events, exhibitions and publications.

Stills from BAN -Unravelled, a film by Niyaz Saghari commissioned as part of the BAN Annual Conference Programme, including archive storage at Touchstones Rochdale (top), Tony Heaton OBE discussing his commission ‘Monument to the Unintended Performer’ (2012), and (below) Sonia Boué reflecting on the emergence of the neurodiversity paradigm

Day 4 of the conference, roundtable session at Tate Britain, London, with (left to right), Mark Hallett (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art), Sophia Hao (University of Dundee), Mark Sealy (Autograph ABP), Alex Farquharson (Tate Britain) and Helen Legg (Tate Liverpool)