Alba Colomo and Runo Lagomarsino began to discuss their shared interests and practices while she was participating in the CuratorLab program of Konstfack University in 2013.
As part of her research, Alba investigated the repercussions of modernity on the architecture and society of Latin America. Governments used a discourse of "modernisation" to project and promote their idealised self-image of economically progressive and buoyant nation-states. As the conception of "Western civilisation" was imposed as the only valid and "developed" model to follow, buildings rose as emblems of progress towards an imported utopia.
Her research centred on artists who reflect upon for the idea of modernity as a failed project, producing narratives in response to the specificity of the contexts in which they work.
Although it´s been many years since Europe began the mammoth task of demystifying imperialism and re-thinking its past, it is in times like these, of deep economic and socio-political crisis, that it is most important to think critically and carefully about our own practices and their potentialities. Drawing upon examples from their own work, Alba and Runo will discuss how they each navigate this commitment.
As well as her independent projects, Alba will present some examples of the work she has developed together with Janna Graham as part of the Public Programme at the Nottingham Contemporary, focusing on strategies of how to implement institutional change through programming, and how curating can be a horizontal affective practice.
Runo will reflect on how his own work constructs frictions between language, representation and dominant narratives by investigating fractures and blind paths, these become spaces to tell other stories, unlearn, read the past and imagine other possible futures.