Curatorial Matters: on research methodologies
21 November 2025
PUBLICS, Helsinki
The Space We Make: Curating Counter Geographies of the Mediterranean
Revisiting the Margins: Independent Spaces as Sites of Curatorial Resistance and Knowledge Production
Curatorial Matters is an ongoing curatorial research platform and international symposium series conceived by Patrizia Costantin and Marianna Tsionki. Positioned at the intersection of curatorial practice, critical theory, and research methodologies, the project examines the curatorial as a situated, relational, and knowledge-production practice. Bringing together international and local curators, artists, writers, educators, and researchers, Curatorial Matters creates a space for collective reflection on how exhibitions, public programmes, pedagogies, and artistic research can respond to contemporary social, ecological, and political conditions.
Each iteration is shaped in dialogue with its local context while contributing to a wider transnational network of practitioners engaged in experimental and research-led curatorial methodologies. Through symposia, discussions, publications, and exhibitions, the project foregrounds curatorial practice not simply as exhibition-making, but as a critical framework for generating alternative forms of knowledge, collaboration, and public engagement.
The inaugural edition, Curatorial Matters: On Research Methodologies (2025), hosted at PUBLICS and supported by Aalto University, PUBLICS, and Leeds Arts University, explored questions of environmental infrastructures, extractivism, decolonial curatorial practices, systems of resistance, and alternative archives. Structured through thematic strands and collective discussion, the symposium investigated how curatorial research-practice can remain critically engaged with global urgencies while grounded in specific communities, histories, and ecologies.
The 2025 edition, hosted at PUBLICS in Helsinki, was supported by Aalto University, PUBLICS, and Leeds Arts University, reflecting a shared commitment to research-led curatorial methodologies and transnational collaboration. Each edition is shaped by its host context while contributing to an expanding network of practitioners engaged in developing the tools, methods, and ecologies of contemporary curatorial practice.
The symposium unfolded through three strands:
1. Water, Extractivism & Environmental Infrastructures
2. Translocal & Decolonial Curatorial Practices
3. Systems, Resistance & Alternative Archives
These thematic clusters provided a shared framework for discussing how curatorial research-practice responds to urgent global conditions while remaining anchored in specific communities, sites, and social histories.
>>> More information on the symposium.
>>> Abstracts and biographies.
Each iteration is shaped in dialogue with its local context while contributing to a wider transnational network of practitioners engaged in experimental and research-led curatorial methodologies. Through symposia, discussions, publications, and exhibitions, the project foregrounds curatorial practice not simply as exhibition-making, but as a critical framework for generating alternative forms of knowledge, collaboration, and public engagement.
The inaugural edition, Curatorial Matters: On Research Methodologies (2025), hosted at PUBLICS and supported by Aalto University, PUBLICS, and Leeds Arts University, explored questions of environmental infrastructures, extractivism, decolonial curatorial practices, systems of resistance, and alternative archives. Structured through thematic strands and collective discussion, the symposium investigated how curatorial research-practice can remain critically engaged with global urgencies while grounded in specific communities, histories, and ecologies.
The 2025 edition, hosted at PUBLICS in Helsinki, was supported by Aalto University, PUBLICS, and Leeds Arts University, reflecting a shared commitment to research-led curatorial methodologies and transnational collaboration. Each edition is shaped by its host context while contributing to an expanding network of practitioners engaged in developing the tools, methods, and ecologies of contemporary curatorial practice.
The symposium unfolded through three strands:
1. Water, Extractivism & Environmental Infrastructures
2. Translocal & Decolonial Curatorial Practices
3. Systems, Resistance & Alternative Archives
These thematic clusters provided a shared framework for discussing how curatorial research-practice responds to urgent global conditions while remaining anchored in specific communities, sites, and social histories.
>>> More information on the symposium.
>>> Abstracts and biographies.
Curators: Patrizia Costantin (Lecturer in Curating and MA Art and Media Programme Director, Aalto University) and Marianna Tsionki (Associate Professor & University Curator, Leeds Arts University).
This event was part of PUBLICS Parahosting programme and was supported by the Department of Art and Media, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University.
This event was part of PUBLICS Parahosting programme and was supported by the Department of Art and Media, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University.
Curating Estrangement: Salt, Memory, and the Afterlives of Infrastructure
Undercurrents. Poetics and Politics of the Flood
Against Monocultural Curating: Are Practical Realignments of Curatorial Possible?
Ali T. As’ad, Marina Christodoulidou, KUĆĆA’s Klara Petrović & Luja Šimunović and Barbara Mahlknecht
The Parasite, the Stranger, and the Trickster: Curatorial Experiments with KUĆĆA