Free of charge
About the lecture
Clémentine Deliss has developed a model for a Metabolic Museum-University with which to remediate secondary collections and dormant university research holdings. Abandoned, neglected or sequestered for conservation purposes, these accumulated objects are largely perceived today as having only retrospective value, or value that records the development of an institution or discipline. However, collections that once formed the basis of museums, art departments, and faculties of social and natural sciences nevertheless contain prototypical traces of innovation. Today, these collections maintain their value as epistemic objects that can be reactivated and reinterpreted by future generations. The Museum-University is a model for the architectonic reorganization of the museum. In this lecture, Clémentine Deliss demonstrates how museums and universities can reconfigure their institutional metabolism to create democratic and decolonial spaces using ergonomic furniture that lets visitors engage with artifacts and artworks as hybrid assemblies. The motto of the Metabolic Museum-University is that no exam is necessary to enter a museum.
This is the opening lecture for La collection est-elle une ressource ou un fardeau ? (Are collections a resource or a burden?), an international conference organized with the Arts des images et art contemporain laboratory (AIAC, EA 4010) at Université Paris 8, the Laboratoire international de recherches en arts (LIRA, EA 7343) at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, the Research Chair in Curatorial Studies and Practices at Université du Québec à Montréal, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, as part of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership.
About the speaker
Clémentine Deliss works across the borders of contemporary art, critical anthropology, curatorial practice, and publishing. She is Curator at Large at KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels, where she is developing her Metabolic Museum-University model, and is also Global Humanities Honorary Professor in Art History at Cambridge University. She was Director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, where she set up a transdisciplinary laboratory to remediate collections in a post-ethnological paradigm. She was Associate Curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2020-2023). Her exhibition Skin in the Game featured seminal prototypes by contemporary artists, including Otobong Nkanga, Rosemarie Trockel, and Joëlle Tuerlinckx. The book Skin in the Game: Conversations on Risk and Contention, was published in December 2023. Her publication The Metabolic Museum (2020) is a reference for museum professionals to rethink ways to reactivate collections.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Location: Maxwell Cummings Auditorium, 1379-A, Sherbrooke Street West
Reservation terms: Please note that unclaimed reserved seats will be made available to other participants.
