This online workshop proposes the Tai Chi based exercise of ‘pushing hands’ as a model of practice that moves with incoming force to redirect it or allow it to exhaust itself. It will be a collective exercise for up to 10 practitioners in shaping projects in development through the lenses of: risk, authorship and tactics for togetherness.

The workshop approaches the curatorial as an open field of inquiry into a wide range of contemporary conditions, stances, materials, spatial, organizational, personal and group dynamics. It invites participants to articulate difficult questions and urgencies emerging from their own curatorial and artistic research. It is conceived as a peer-exchange and discussion based three-hour long session with the aim of prompting processes of rethinking the frameworks and negotiations involved in staging difficult conversations via the curatorial as both site and method.

The workshop has limited spots. We welcome registration from artists, curators and researchers who are interested in openly engaging with questions of ethics and curatorial thinking. Participants will be selected based on their application and diversity of the group. We collectively intend to make this workshop a safe, non-competitive and non-judgmental space for practitioners to share and talk through ongoing inquiries and collectively through questions and doubts. The workshop will be recorded but not made available publicly. However, a limited-time view-only link will be shared with the participants.

Hammad Nasar is a London-based curator, researcher and strategic advisor. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, where he co-leads the ‘London, Asia’ project; Principal Research Fellow at the Decolonising Arts Institute, UAL where is developing the ‘Curating Nation’ project; and co-curator of British Art Show 9. He was the inaugural Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation, London (2018-19); Head of Research & Programmes at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2012-16); and, co-founded the pioneering hybrid arts organisation, Green Cardamom, London (2004-12). Known for collaborative, research-driven and exhibition-led inquiry, he has curated numerous exhibitions internationally. Nasar has served in advisory, trustee and board roles for numerous organisations including: Mophradat (Belgium), British Council, Delfina Foundation, Iniva, Manchester Art Gallery, Tate Etc. and Whitechapel Gallery (UK), Lahore Biennale Foundation (Pakistan) and Alserkal Avenue (UAE). He is a member of the expert panel for Art and Design, History, Practice and Theory as part of the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021).

The ‘Pushing Hands’ workshop is part of ‘Research as Practice’ lecture series, organised under KNMA Education Outreach program.

Registration open until 1 April 2021