Ned McConnell

Title of Dissertation: Emptying the Archive: Rethinking Archival Presence

Contextualisation is at the core of my curatorial practice; contextualisation of works of art, of the viewer, and of the institution.

My practice is a negotiation of experience and critique, framing the audience within this space. I am attracted to the ways in which curators and institutions can act as a bridge for the audience to understand artistic practice and concerned with how institutions frame experience. Through experimental curatorial techniques I practice new ways of engaging the audience by shifting their position within the gallery to one of an explorer.

Methodologically my exhibition making takes on a collaborative ethic, not from a critical or theoretical standpoint but from a functional approach. Negotiation is fundamental to this process. This approach has been refined on my MA enabling me to consider how this approach can be productive, critical and produce engaging exhibition formats.

The creative and innovative contextualising platforms in my graduate exhibition, No one lives here, opened up new ways of approaching the exhibition for the audience. Central to this was a research display that prefaced the exhibition, presented as a case study of the Pionen Data Centre, which was central to our research and acted as a curatorial metaphor to work through ideas of digital cultural flow.

Another aspect of the contextualising material was the publication, which I edited with three colleagues, the essay of which brings together aspects of research that open up a dialogue with the wider themes of the exhibition. This unfolds another layer of experience.