Giovanna Esposito Yussif
Conference Report. November 2023
I attended The Co-Creative Museum: Social Agency, Ethics, and Heritage held at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires from the 9th to the 11th of November 2023, thanks to the support of Saastamoinen Foundation.
The program managed to successfully intersect an international perspective through lectures while developing an intense visiting program enabling participants to gain perspective of the plurality of the Argentinian art scenes. In resonance to my praxis, I was particularly inspired by the work of Elvira Espejo Ayca (Artist and Director, Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia), Nicolás Testoni (Director, Ferrowhite – museo taller, Bahía Blanca, Argentina), Daina Leyton (Cultural Accessibility Consultant, Moreira Salles Institute, São Paulo, Brazil), Marian Pastor Roces (Curator and Principal Partner, TAOINC, Metropolitan Manila, Philippines), Claudia Zaldívar (Director, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA), Santiago, Chile) and María Belén Correa (Director and Founder, Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina). Their lectures directly responded to the complexities implied when addressing the social and political dimensions, posing clear examples of how to develop praxis from a situated institutional approach and how to develop dignified practices with minoritized groups and knowledges. They are examples that organically respond to an urgency that many art institutions still fail to recognize or pretend to do via programming and cosmetic approaches:
How to make long-lasting structural and policy changes to adequately address the change of sensibilities and the multiple praxes coming from art workers that are questioning and directly challenging the status quo and the mono-cultural hegemonies in their art fields? The conference enabled a beautiful gathering to reconnect with colleagues from around the world, especially with those based in Latin America. For me, the main shortcoming was that in an aim to build and present both a comprehensive program and a wide perspective of the local scene, the organizers failed to secure time for conversations. For the next conference, it would be meaningful to think about how to develop formats that –despite the hecticness– can enable a time and space to meet with colleagues and fellow grantees, to learn from each other, and to strategize further paths intersecting our contexts and practices.
Bio
Giovanna Esposito Yussif engages with curatorial praxis and research. Her background is in art history, museology, and critical theory. Giovanna has a long-standing commitment to nondominant praxes, dissentient imaginations, epistemic plurality and epistemologies in resistance.
In 2019 she curated the Pavilion of Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale with the Miracle Workers Collective. She is currently artistic director of the Museum of Impossible Forms (2021-), co-artistic of Drifts (2022-), curator for M_itä biennale 2023, and co-curator for Helsinki Biennial 2023.
Giovanna has collaborated with diverse institutions such as Helsinki Biennial, Office for Contemporary Art Norway - OCA, Museum of Impossible Forms, Archive, Goethe Institut, Savvy Contemporary, Manifesta Foundation, SOMA, Sinne Gallery, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Baltic Circle, Helsinki International Artist Program, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, RabRab Press, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Galería OMR, Fundación/Colección Jumex, among others. She edited A Greater Miracle Of Perception with Archive Books (2019) and Polyphonic Texts and Toolkit with Night Schoolers (2019), as well she has written for diverse contemporary art publications. She has been guest Lecturer for Kuvataideakatemia, Taidekoulu Maa, Mentor for Live Art and Performance Studies-Theater Academy in Helsinki, and Curatorial Practice at University of Bergen, and an active contributor to diverse collectives, networks, and boards.