Melina Berkenwald

Conference Report. November 2023

It has been very fruitful to attend the CIMAM conference in Buenos Aires. First of all, I enjoyed listening to all the presentations, where I could compare different approaches, experiences, ways of working, methodologies, and thoughts, on several topics. The mix of professionals who gave the talks, including museum directors, curators, artists, and writers, among others, was very interesting, as they offered different ideas and approaches.

Each presentation was therefore a unique experience to listen to and analyze. Although some talks were more interesting to me than others, overall, it was a very interesting mix, providing new information, updated knowledge, and current methodologies.

Listening to the presentations and discussions, and also sharing time with all the professionals who attended CIMAM during coffee breaks, lunchtime, cocktails, minibusses, and visits, was very useful in terms of sharing ideas, making new contacts and also reconnecting with colleagues I have not seen for a while. In this respect, I think that a lot is lost when a presentation is via Zoom, regardless of its interest and pertinence.

I met professionals with whom I may start new links, that may hopefully lead to future collaborations that will benefit my organization, its future programs, and thus the artistic community, both nationally and internationally.

To share several days, from morning to night, with (almost always) the same people, made the conference an ideal platform that had a relaxed atmosphere in which to interact with others. It was good to have free moments to meet and chat.

Even though I live in Buenos Aires, the visits to the city were useful. I could go to places I did not even know, such as a local art school, and to places where I have not been in a long time, such as a mental health institution.

I would have liked the time for questions and answers after the talks to have been longer. I think it often takes time for people to ask questions or make comments after the formal speeches, and it is necessary to give time, to break the ice, so that a more intense and active discussion takes place. I also think that it could be useful to have a closing talk at the end of the conference, in an open format where everyone present has the same role as both speaker and listener.

Specifically, some terms-concepts-ideas mentioned have especially resonated with current concerns: “superficial beauty,” “blue note,” “frontal oculocentric tyranny” (tiranía oculocéntrica frontal), “chains of solidarity,” “real life consequences,” “strategies of remembering,” “mushroom Mycelium,” “common garden,” “the archive as a family.” Some of them are new to me, and others are of course known, but it is good to remember and to rethink them in our current situation.

I was also happy, and even surprised, to see that art residencies were brought up several times by some speakers, as this is one of my main fields of work and expertise. Art residencies are not always remembered or considered in many art discourses, so I was very moved by this. Especially so, when the CIMAM award was given to an institution in recognition of its residency project.

To conclude, I want to express my sincere gratitude again to CIMAM, its team, all the organizers, the Travel Grant Funders, and the Selection Board that enabled my participation.

Bio

I was born in the city of Buenos Aires in 1972. I have interacted with art and its poetics from different approaches: my own artistic production, cultural management, theory and research, writing, curatorship and teaching. My work in the artistic field has gone through these areas in different ways and intensities, according to each stage of my life and my work, sometimes integrating several areas and other times with greater dedication to one of them.

In 1994 I graduated from the National School of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón with a degree in drawing and painting. In 1996 I travelled to London, where I did postgraduate studies, and where I lived, exhibited and worked on different art projects until 2004.

Between 1996 and 1997 I did an MA in Painting at Chelsea College of Art. Between 1999 and 2004, thanks to a grant from the Quinting Hogg Scholarship, I did a Theoretical PhD in Art and Communication at the University of Westminster, supervised by Paddy Scannell (co-founder of the journal "Media, Culture and Society"), researching aspects of contemporary painting production. During those years I was active in academia, teaching and presenting research papers at conferences and symposia. In parallel I worked on my artistic work, integrating initiatives that linked me directly with community practices, self-managed artist groups and critical curatorship and management.

In 2003 I was invited as an artist to two art residencies in Scotland and India which, among other reasons, encouraged me to return to Argentina in 2004 to start a residency project in the country.

From 2006 to 2009 I co-founded and co-directed RIAA (International Artist Residency in Argentina) in Ostend and Buenos Aires. In 2020 I founded the organisation URRA which since then carries out different programmes of art residencies, open workshops, exhibitions and conferences among other activities, represented by the "Fundación VERIA para el Desarrollo, la Investigación y la Difusión del Arte y la Cultura" which I preside.

Among my recent curatorial projects is "Blend", an initiative that seeks to combine works by artists with sites with a strong imprint, either by their architecture, history, character or function. The first edition was "Blend #1: Emiliano Miliyo + Niño Gordo", in 2021, carried out during the programme "Panorama" by Meridiano and arteBA. A second edition was made for the "Bares Notables" programme in 2022: "BLEND #2: Varela Varelita + Cima, Ojeda Bär, Benavente, Ziccarello and Palmieri". Another recent curatorship is entitled "Es tierra melancolía perros, y la ruta avanza..." (It's melancholy land, dogs, and the road moves forward...), held in 2021 at Quimera gallery in Buenos Aires. In 2019 I co-curated the exhibition "Exposures" together with Gasworks director Alessio Antoniolli; a video-art exhibition with 24 artists from 24 galleries in Argentina for the London Open House, commissioned by Meridiano and the Argentine Embassy in the UK. In previous years I have curated for Museo Sívori, Centro Cultural Borges and Galería Pasto among others.

My curatorial work includes exhibitions of the art residencies and their Open Studios, several with a direct exhibition format such as the recent exhibition "Cúmulo" held in 2022 at Galería Del Infinito, or "La luz que atraviesa los cuerpos" held in 2021 at URRA Tigre. My publications include texts from the above exhibitions and other commissioned texts for exhibitions and projects. I have been a member of juries, most recently for the Itaú Visual Arts Prize (selection in 2022 and award in 2023), and for the XIV Central Bank Painting Prize in 2021.