Vessel: a Meridian Practice

Wolverhampton School of Art / Centre for Art, Design, Research & Experimentation / FEINART 

By Viviana Checchia and Anna Santomauro, Vessel

Abstract

In this lecture Viviana Checchia and Anna Santomauro will present a collective engaged curatorial practice beyond the usual schemes: situated, but nomadic; responsive, but not embedded; institutionalised, but not normalised.

This practice has been developed during the past 10 years within their intellectual and emotional Vessel, a nomadic research-led agency and curatorial organisation. Vessel is a platform for critical discussion surrounding the cultural, social, economic and political change created through community-based work, based in Puglia, Italy.

Vessel has devoted great attention to the definition and development of socially-engaged art practice and contributed internationally through the application of socially-engaged tools and methods in contemporary curatorial practice, always from a perspective other than the mainstream.

In this lecture the curators and co-founders of Vessel Viviana Checchia and Anna Santomauro will share some ideas and examples of how that was possible through public programming, commissioning and writing.

Biography

Viviana Checchia is a curator, critic and lecturer active internationally. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at HDK-Valand. Previous to this role she was Public Engagement Curator at the Centre for Contemporary Arts: Glasgow. Prior to taking up her role at CCA, Viviana produced and contributed to a range of international projects, including the Young Artist of the Year Award 2014 (YAYA) in Ramallah and the 4th Athens Biennale. For the past ten years, Viviana has co-directed Vessel, a platform for critical discussion surrounding the cultural, social, economic and political change created through community-based work, based in Puglia, Italy.

Anna Santomauro is a curator, educator and researcher in micropolitics and socially engaged art. In 2017 she joined Arts Catalyst as Curator. In 2011, Santomauro co-founded Vessel in Bari, Italy, a non-profit arts organisation dedicated to public programming in relation to contemporary social, political, and economic issues. Between 2015 and 2018 Santomauro was Public Programmer at Eastside Projects (Birmingham) and curator-in-residence at Grand Union (Birmingham). Santomauro was one of the recipients of ICI/Dedalus Research Award. She attended several curatorial courses such as GBICC 2012 organized by the Gwangju Biennial, ICA Summer Seminar in Yerevan (Armenia), ICI – Independent Curators International Seminar in Istanbul, and is member of IKT.

Centre for Art, Design, Research & Experimentation

The Centre for Art, Design, Research & Experimentation (CADRE) accommodates researchers within the Wolverhampton School of Art. It was established in 2006 to explore and develop the beneficial effect of art and design upon society. The Centre is clustered into three focused areas of research interests: Art, Society and Social Practice; Digital Technology Theory and Practice; Material and Theoretical Practice.