Critical Distance Program Type Field Studies

Social studies at Critical Distance: a convivial reading/writing group for the curatorially inclined.
Session one: A contingent curriculum

Join us for conversation and co-learning in an informal, intimate, and unintimidating atmosphere this coming Thursday, July 16th from 6:30-8:30pm. For this first session, titled ‘A contingent curriculum,’ we will explore concepts, politics, and practices of improvisation, contingency, catastrophe, and collaboration between curator, artist, and diverse publics in relation to our current exhibition, contemporary painting, and curating more broadly.

Find out more

Critical Distance is pleased to welcome you to STUDY HALL, our newest initiative in support of critical curatorial inquiry, community, and practice. This Winter we’re opening up our space and our program to explore more nimble, flexible, responsive and mutually supportive frameworks for curatorial commoning and collaboration. 

All are welcome to drop in and visit, ask questions, peruse our featured publications, and join in the conversation on curating today. Outside public hours, visit our Instagram page @critical.distance for links to our survey, e-Shop, and newsletter subscription form, so you can be in the know on upcoming programs, events, and other ways to get involved.

Find out more

In 2023, we embarked upon a yearlong research and community consultation process under the banner of New Directions for Critical Distance. Still reeling from pandemic-related setbacks, we had identified strategic and financial planning as key to our recovery. Thanks to the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund, we were able to design an integrated, multi-phase process that began in consultation with key mentors, curatorial peers, and stakeholders from across the sector. Through an in-depth survey developed in collaboration with senior market analyst and consultant Marina Mandić, plus over 40 hours of face-to-face community consultations between CDCC Director Shani Khoo Parsons and emerging, midcareer, and established curators from across Canada, we engaged a representative sampling of ~150 curatorial colleagues in conversation and critical questions…Find out more

Critical Distance is excited to partner with Dancemakers’ on their inaugural Dance Curation Working Group. Bringing together a group of independent dance curators to attend Dancemakers’ programming as well as other relevant programs across the GTA, we will experience, reflect, discuss, and engage with dance curators working in the field. The inagural cohort includes (top left across to bottom): Lukas Malkowski, abisola oni, Natalia Arancibia, Wai Liu, Kiera Forde, Kin Nguien, Roxy Menzies, Sarah Koekkoek, Holly Chang, Kage Wolfe, Meek & Bryce Taylor.

Find out more

Ways of Attuning is a curatorial study group initiated by Liz Ikiriko and Toleen Touq, in partnership with Critical Distance Centre for Curators in 2022. The program is a learner-focused mentoring and study group based in Tkaronto/Toronto that aims to create a collaborative learning environment in which everyone is an active, knowledge-sharing member. The study group focuses on curatorial strategies and relational methodologies. While it functions independently and hopes to expand away from academia, it remains in conversation with the global contemporary art world. The program centers on relationality, accountability, and operates within the context of race, place, class, ability, sexuality and gender as fundamentally missing components from institutional and academic curatorial programs.

Find out more