Exhibition Research Lab

Exploring exhibition-making as a research practice

November 12, 2024
2:00 – 5:30pm

—

At the exhibition Research Lab, our research, exhibitions, programme and teaching are predicated on the proposal that curatorial practice is a form of critical inquiry and knowledge production. Our work extends the traditional remit of an art gallery as a site for display or pedagogical resource, to an expanded concept of a ‘lab’ where experimental thinking and making takes place, and where curatorial knowledge is enacted, produced and made public.

In this workshop, our invited speakers will share insights into their curatorial practices, exploring the role of research throughout the process and outcomes of exhibition-making and staging. For many of our colleagues from other disciplines and institutions, this workshop may be an opportunity to gain guidance into how they might frame their own exhibition-making or cultural partnerships in terms of research. For our students, this is an opportunity to learn directly from the experiences of successful practitioners in this field and participate in debate around the meaning and application of research-based exhibitions.

—

2:00 – 2:15 Gather and acclimatise.
2:15 – 2:30 Dr Hana Leaper, co-director of the Exhibition Research Lab to discuss the aims of the ERL and this event.
2:30 – 3:30 talk by Jenny Brownrigg, Exhibitions Director, The Glasgow School of Art, followed by time for discussion and questions.
3:30 – 3:45 Comfort break.
3:45 – 4:45 Talk by Adi Lerer with time for discussion and questions.
4:45 – 5:30 Drinks reception.

—

Jenny Brownrigg is a curator and writer. She is Exhibitions Director and a researcher at The Glasgow School of Art. Her enduring research question is: What new knowledge can curatorial methodology and exhibition-making as a research tool bring to understanding the overlooked practices of 20th Century women photographers in Scotland? In 2017 she curated ‘Observing Women at Work’, (in partnership with Napier University and St Andrews Special Collections), presenting a selection of photographs and material by social documentary photographer Franki Raffles [1955-94]. Brownrigg’s current research is a survey of early 20th Century women photographers and film-makers in Scotland, including the work of Helen Biggar, MEM Donaldson, Jenny Gilbertson, Ruby Grierson, Marion Grierson and Margaret Fay Shaw. A major exhibition output is ‘Glean: early 20th century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’, first floor exhibition at City Art Centre, Edinburgh (12 Nov 2022-12 March 2023). This survey exhibition draws from 17 archives, mostly across Scotland, and features the work of 14 women photographers and filmmakers.

Adi Lerer is a practice-based PhD researcher at Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London. Her thesis focuses on the role of public funded art institutions in the UK through the lens of the ‘civic’. Her research is informed by her curatorial practice on the Home from Home programme at Tate Liverpool for people seeking asylum and those with refugee status, since 2019. Adi holds an MA in Exhibition Studies from Liverpool John Moores University, where her research focused on socially engaged art practice and its relationship to art institutions. During her MA studies she wrote on the phenomena of international art biennials and the tension between global and local, looking at the Liverpool Biennial as a case study. In 2023 she contributed an article in the Social Works Journal with an essay titled ‘Paradoxes of EDI in UK publicly funded art institutions: Imagining pathways of reflexive social practice’. In the past she worked in arts coordination roles at National Gallery and British Council, and has a theatre performance background after graduating from Arts Educational school of Drama – London.

—

Our events are always free and open to all;  there is no need to book tickets for this afternoon of discussion.