In Process

Soft Shock: Curating with Softness

Season 2 Episode 4

Art curation is changing. Today, we are joined by Soft Shock, a new London-based curating collective, who share how emerging curators are approaching this traditionally elite practice of culture-gathering in more public, relational and sustainable ways. It's a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of one of the most critical pivot points in the artist to gallery pipeline, as well as an inspiring conversation that challenges us to think critically about what it truly means to make work that is accessible and meaningful to a community audience.

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Biography

Founded in 2024, soft shock is a London-based curatorial collective led by curators Júlia Polo and Georgie Worth. With a commitment to sustainable and socially-engaged practices, their curatorial ethos is shaped by interdisciplinary research in the fields of gender, health, care, and identity. Through collaborative projects, they aim to mediate active modes of participation and facilitate spaces for communal knowledge sharing, analogue processes and mindful encounters.

IG Handles

Soft Shock: @softshockcollective

Show: @inprocess__show

Willow: @indexthumb

Lawrence: @lawrencewilson3663

Freddy: @arswain__

Texts & Links

Soft Shock Website

Gasworks Sound Workshop

Arts Council Grants

Eek!

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
02:15 Origins and Curating with softness
05:18 What do curators do?
10:08 Artist-curator collaboration
13:08 Working with art spaces
17:37 Networking
22:43 Curators and audiences
31:23 Changes in personal relationship to art
35:42 Incorporating more-than-human perspectives
39:40 Animals as audiences
42:09 Funding and earning as a curator
48:20 Contemporary rural art
57:12 What’s next
01:01:35 Artist’s way

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