Julia Carolina Acosta
Conference Report. November 2023
A collection without a museum
I applied for a CIMAM 2023 travel grant due to my need to meet with people who work in museums and to reflect on the role of museums in today’s societies. My Letter of Intent for the grant dealt with my work recovering a collection, which I have carried out since 2021. It began with a question: Where can I find a work of my own authorship that is part of the collection of the city where I live? That question went unanswered. So, I am writing a project that began with this task of recovery and which continues today, without much success.
This collection has not had its own physical space. It still does not have one, despite the fact that year after year, works are added to it through a municipal salon that awards prizes to three works from the disciplines in the competition. Six works enter the collection each year. I dream and imagine a museum in my own city. I am pursuing this idea with the aim that, at some point, the works in the collection can be given a space in which they are cared for, one which is open to the community and where it is possible for it to be thought of as an object of knowledge and shared with students, artists, researchers, and the entire community.
The space in this museum of my dreams is also a space to debate the place of the imagination. A collection of works of art that have not yet been studied, shared, or enjoyed. I find in it the potential for specific and symbolic opportunities to be developed, ranging from the creation of sources of work to the development of artistic, educational, curatorial, writing, research, and social activities. A collection with the potential to narrate a history of the visual arts in my city.
In the roundtable titled “The Role of Museums in Communities, Education, and Accessibility”, the artist Luis Camnitzer remarked on the importance of artistic education as a “root activity in which we use the imagination, exploring the impossible, the unspeakable and the mysterious. Art ensures an ecology of knowledge that gives us respect for the unknown.” At a time when consumerism and productivity seem to be the raison d'être of human activity, creative thinking allows us to explore the depths of being and the infinite field of the impossible. Camnitzer sharply defends the importance of the social sciences and the humanities, as opposed to the new model of STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), which trains students for a competitive perspective of the working world.
Ingenuity organizes the known world, while creation looks to the future, says Luis Camnitzer. Drawing from the presentations, I have also reflected on what a new museum would mean. While there is a physical and concrete need, it is a space that should be made permeable to the community, where the inside relates to the outside. Observing the context of my city, I have found many commonalities and differences in thinking about a museum. The collection I am working on is made up of works by local artists, it is not imposing itself from abroad.
It is interesting to see how a large number of institutions are currently rethinking the traditional role of museums, which has been to safeguard art objects and to care for and reproduce a colonial narrative. “The death of the colonial undertaking”, says Marie Helène Pereira (curator and cultural manager from Dakar, Senegal) in reference to the creative forms that can give shape to intangible realities, such as that of the Senegalese-Vietnamese families made invisible for many years, about whom she has made a moving audiovisual work called “What is the price of memory and the price of forgetting?” It is interesting to see how, by observing and studying the surrounding community, discourses are altered, and new narratives can be created.
I am also referring to the poetics of access, as presented by Daina Leyton (cultural accessibility consultant, São Paulo, Brazil), because in my city, there is a strong presence of deaf and blind communities who are fighting for their linguistic rights and yet are not included in the agenda of museum activities.
Elvira Espejo Ayca, (artist and director of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, MUSEF, in La Paz, Bolivia), speaking during the session titled “How Can Museums Embrace their Social Responsibility? A Question from the Americas”, supported the idea of a new museum paradigm, with an epistemology and philosophy where “community feedback is important, not only in terms of bibliographic citations but also for “oralitura” [orality]”. It is a paradigm that speaks of mutual nurturing – that is, the utmost care for the raw materials from nature – of cultural heritage (not collections), of the work as a subject (not an object). It lovingly invites us to listen to nature in order to discover new forms and enter into dialogue with them. These are ideas that challenge me to think of myself as an artist in a city on the banks of the Paraná River, with a very strong sense of nature and river culture.
To close, I would like to mention Simon Njami (writer and independent curator, Paris, France), who posed a challenging philosophical question: How do we find systems outside the ones we already know?
Bio
Born in Río Cuarto, Córdoba. Lives in Paraná, Entre Ríos since 1971. Julia Carolina Acosta is a visual artist, educator, cultural manager, and independent curator.
She studied at the Instituto Superior de Bellas Artes "Roberto López Carnelli" in Paraná. She has continued her training by attending clinics and workshops. She is currently attending the Programa Doméstico workshop with the artist Raquel Minetti (2019,2022,2023). She was selected by the Fundación Antorchas to attend the clinics given by Rafael Cipollini, Diana Aisenberg, Roberto Amigo, and Marina De Caro (Chaco and Corrientes, 2004,2005) and Sparring Tour given by Jorge Sepúlveda (Paraná, 2009). He has received training and production grants from the Fundación Banco Entre Ríos and was awarded the Creación grant from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes in 2021.
He founded the visual artists' collective Parientes, with whom he organised fairs, workshops and a publishing imprint dedicated to disseminating the work of visual artists from the region between 2002 and 2018.
She is a member of the Culture team of the Municipality of Paraná in charge of the Coordination of the Visual Arts area. This arises from her own interest in carrying out a research project to care for, document and disseminate the artistic heritage. She also manages the Salones Municipales de Artes Visuales.
She has carried out curatorial practices in Paraná and in the city of Santa Fe.
- 71% of water at the Museo Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez with the collective Parientes, 2017.
- Scenes to compose a biography of the visual artist Silvina Fontelles, 2021.
- Developed the room design and curatorship for the Salón Municipal de Artes Visuales, 2022 edition. She is currently working on the exhibition of the same show to be held in July 2023.
Together with the artist Mariela Herrera, she was invited by the Museo Provincial de Artes Visuales Pedro E. Martínez (Paraná, Entre Ríos) to curate the works and artists who participated in the 58th and 59th editions of the Salón Anual Provincial de Artes Visuales de Entre Ríos in the discipline of Textile Art.
He has been awarded prizes and distinctions at municipal and provincial level. Awarded in the discipline of textile art in the 58th Annual Exhibition of Visual Artists of Entre Ríos (2021), first prize in the discipline of Drawing in the 55th Provincial Exhibition of Visual Arts of Entre Ríos (2018). Mention in Painting discipline at the 53rd Provincial Visual Arts Salon (2016), first prize in the Municipal Illustrated Poem Salon (2015). Mention without order of merit at the Salón Municipal de Arte Objetual (2014). First prize acquisition Municipal Hall of Painting in small format (2012).
In exchange with other provinces he participated in the group show Desborde Programa doméstico (Casa Boulevard, 2023), Recortes de lo cotidiano Programa Doméstico (Museo Prov. Artes Visuales, 2019), Interfaces. Una antología posible (Centro Cultural CCK, 2015), Zodiacología curated by Rafael Cipollini (Espacio de arte del Diario La Capital, 2011), Entre márgenes, Entre Ríos. Belonging. Puesta en valor de la diversidad cultural (Bs As. Casa de la cultura del FNA, 2010), Artistas etcétera. Nuevos modelos de artistas (Germina Campos. Santa Fe, 2007), Programa Argentina pinta bien. Art from Entre Ríos (Museo Prov. Bellas Artes and Centro Cultural Recoleta, 2007/8). Interfaces. Diálogos visuales entre las regiones (Paraná - Neuquén, 2006).
She works as an arts educator in a secondary school and is a member of the gallery La Portland.