Living Documents: Embodying the afterimage of art as an agent for new and divergent forms of exhibition documentation

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This project examines how the changing role of exhibition documentation - from primarily archival use to a form of publicity - has had a fundamental effect on artistic practice, exhibition making, and criticism in the advent of its increased visibility. Developed as a CDA between Camden Arts Centre (CAC) and Kingston School of Art, this research will be primarily conducted from within a publicly facing organisation as a working methodology to discuss and generate new and divergent forms of documentation in collaboration with CAC staff, exhibiting artists and audience members.To support my research, I will draw on my curatorial practice in which I have worked with artists who have experimented with exhibition documentation throughout the 20th and into the 21st Century. I refer to key examples that propose subjective and embodied approaches, as well as critical responses, as counterpoints to the objectification of exhibition documentation, and its wider repercussion within a digitally inflected present. By questioning how an exhibition becomes an image, this project explores how a plurality of different perspectives can enrich our engagement with contemporary art. In this respect, my research aims to reposition exhibition documentation as integral to an audience's understanding of contemporary art. If the installation shot increasingly stands in for the exhibition, then documentation becomes the primary site for public reception. Throughout the CDA, I will approach exhibition documentation as a curatorial tool that can inform artistic practice, exhibition making, and critical thinking, and use it in collaboration with staff at CAC to develop parallel forms of documentation from within a public-facing organisation. I will simultaneously chart the development of my research in a series of texts published in magazines and journals I regularly contribute to, while the project will culminate in a presentation of alternative forms of documentation collaboratively generated at CAC.