MUMA Precarious Movements Converations 2

Session 2. Square Peg: Rethinking and Reconfiguring the Museum Collection

27 October 2020

Panel: Lisa Catt, Victoria Hunt, Shelley Lasica and Tania Doropoulos Moderator: Pip Wallis (Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV)

There is a notable absence of choreographic works in museum collections. An obstacle seem to exist at the most fundamental level—the very way museums understand the art object and structure the process of collecting. This session looks at how artists and institutions are confronting the limitations of current acquisition frameworks and are considering ways in which collections might make space for living practice and immaterial context. Shelley Lasica and Tania Doropoulos look to Lasica’s work Dress: A Costumed Performance with Designer Martin Grant, 1998–2019, as a model for how artists might approach the acquisition of their work. Artist Victoria Hunt discusses her experiences within institutional contexts, reflecting on how museum ontologies and temporalities might be challenged and changed. And curator Lisa Catt discusses how the archive might circumvent institutional hierarchies and dependencies on objecthood to represent a wider range of artforms within a museum collection.

With support from the Australian Research Council through research and commissioning partner Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, a research project hosted by University of New South Wales, with Art Gallery of New South Wales, Monash University Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Tate.