Curation derives from the Latin: curare (to care), and it is the full meaning–and implication–of this root word that informs this presentation. Drawing from 25 years of curation, production and event presentation, on varying scales–from council house sitting room to the breadth of the UK–Gareth Evans will explore how an idea is realized and how it adapts to circumstances without losing its core identity. Ranging across artforms–from moving image to literature, hybrid and activist events–and considering funding (and its lack), in-kind and 'fellow traveller' support, we'll look at the ethics and ecology of curation, its role in a thread of solidarity from artist to audience, and the collaborative co-existence evident in models of practice now, fit for the uncertain times we inhabit.
Gareth Evans is a London-based writer, editor, film/event curator, producer, host and documentary mentor. He works on special projects for the London Review of Books and curates their Screen at Home series. From 2012-2023 he was the Adjunct Moving Image Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery. He has written many catalogue essays and articles on place, culture, artists and the moving image, as well as the extensive text for Radiohead's KID A MNESIA catalogue. He edited the international moving image magazine Vertigo from 2002-2009, is a mentor on UCL’s Documentary MA and a Visiting Lecturer at the NFTS among others.
He commissioned and co-produced the essay films Patience (After Sebald) by Grant Gee (Artevents, 2011), Things (Ben Rivers, FVU, 2014) and World Without End (Jem Cohen, Estuary, 2016). He has programmed major retrospectives of the films of Jem Cohen, Mike Dibb, Xiaolu Guo, Alexander Kluge, Chris Marker, Jonathan Meades and Laura Mulvey & Peter Wollen. He has conceived and curated numerous film and event seasons and festivals across the UK including Utopia 2016 (Somerset House), Place (Aldeburgh Music, 2011-2014), The Re-Enchantment (UK, 2011), All Power to the Imagination! 1968 & Its Legacies (2008) and John Berger: Here Is Where We Meet (2005) and the first UK series devoted to Armenian and Roma cinema, J.G.Ballard and Paul Celan, among many others.
On Monday, the filmscreening of Patience (After Sebald) von Grant Gee (Artevents, 2011, English, without subtitles, 90 minutes) will take place. The lecture will be held on Tuesday, and in English language.