Gwangju Biennale

Gwangju Biennale presents International Curator Course

The first International Curator Course of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation released the final list of the twenty-seven participants. This International Curator Course is a unique curator education program, which in this form has never been offered before by any other international biennale. The course instantly attracted worldwide attention in the international art scene, receiving 114 applications from 28 different countries. It is an interdisciplinary education program in direct collaboration with the 3rd Gwangju Design Biennale, which will start in September 2009.

Most of the 27 participants of this program are young curators in their mid 20's or early 30's which have been selected virtually from all over the globe, including Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and Oceania. The admission panel included Yongwoo Lee (Chair), Byungsoo Eun (Artistic Director of the Gwangju Design Biennale, 2009), Massimiliano Gioni (Artistic Director of the Gwangju Biennale 2010), Barbara Vanderlinden (Visiting Professor) and Sunjung Kim (Professor of the Korea National University of Arts).

This curator course aims to embark on some in-depth interdisciplinary research and discussion sessions dealing with a wide range of discourses that include many practical topics like curatorship and exhibition practices, the human and sociological backgrounds of visual art and also touching issues like cultural theory and audience research. In addition the coursework will re-examine the most frequently referred-to subjects in today's biennale scene: hybrid culture, nomadism and cultural politics.

The lecturers of this course include internationally reputed curators, the visiting professor Barbara Vanderlinden, professors from collaborating universities, critics, designers, architects and of course the curators of the Gwangju Design Biennale.

Following is the list of participants to the curator course (Names are in alphabetical order).
Cole Akers(USA), Claudia Albertini(Italy), Federica Bueti(Italy), Anthe Buys(South Africa), Hyunjoo Byeon(Korea), Hyunjin Byun(Korea), Ann Cesteleyn(Belgium), Maja Ciric(Serbia), Falat Elke(Germany), Mark Feary(New Zealand), Natilee Harren(USA), Amanda Hellman(USA), Nayoung Kim(Korea), Yeonjeong Kim(Korea), Purity Senewa Kinaiyia(Kenya), Keiko Koshihara(Japan), Riwon Lee(Korea), Laura Mainer Til(Spain), Kate Martin(UK) , Tarah Murphy(USA), Soonhyun Myung(Korea), Natalie O'Donnell(Norway), Maike Pricelius(Germany), Florencia Qualina(Argentina), Alessandra Sandrolini(Italy), Veerangana Solanki(India), Simon Sien Yong Soon(Malaysia)