Katarzyna Kucharska-Hornung

A total of 24 modern and contemporary art museum professionals residing in 19 different cities have been awarded support to attend the CIMAM 2019 Annual Conference The 21st Century Art Museum: Is Context Everything? that will be held in Sydney, Australia 15–17 November 2019 hosted jointly by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Launched in 2005, CIMAM’s Travel Grant Program is designed to foster cooperation and cultural exchange between contemporary art curators and museums directors in emerging and developing economies and their counterparts in other regions of the world.

Katarzyna Kucharska-Hornung's Conference Report

I am grateful for the international recognition of the political crisis in Poland that deeply affects the cultural and art scene. It was empowering to be heard during the General Assembly, the seminar on Populism and Censorship and while conducting one to one conversations. The last statement by CIMAM Museum Watch Program on the nomination of the new director of Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (that took place without competition) and general support for Małgorzata Ludwisiak, who will now take a seat in the CIMAM Board are enforcing signs of international solidarity within CIMAM art community.

I am also impressed by the opportunities we gained during the Annual Conference in sharing subversive strategies with colleagues from Brazil, China, and Singapore, although we do operate in different political and economic contexts. In the age of the internet, social media and climate crisis that all together question a need of traveling to participate in the conversation, I believe it is worth having discussions in person, in a real presence.

CIMAM 2019 Annual Conference The 21st Century Art Museum: Is Context Everything? have left me with a series of unanswered questions. Treating keynotes, case studies and networking chats as a point of departure, I have tried to land within a Polish, highly politicized context. I allow myself to enumerate some question marks with a reference to keynotes by Wanda Nanibush and Franklin Sirmans.

What would it mean to diversify collection in accordance with the Polish community? Shall we include more artists of Ukrainian origin in our collection? To what extent do we need to focus more systematically on the “absent minorities” or minorities that were oppressed under communist power and almost erased from the public memory? To what extent can we rework these issues when being an art museum? How can we address the gender imbalance in our collection? How can we face all of the above, when not being able to enlarge our collection because of the considerably low budgeting? What kind of research-based projects, temporary exhibitions, publications would help to address these issues?