Queering and Cripping Within Curatorial and Artistic Exhibition Practices
Please join us with speaker Sylvia Sadzinski for Session 2 of the Crip Art Histories Reading Group!
In this talk, Sylvia Sadzinski draws on her chapter “Letting the Freak Flag Fly: Queering and Cripping Within Artistic Exhibition Practices” (in Queer Exhibition Histories, ed. Bas Hendrikx, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2023, 35-51) to explore how queering and cripping function as artistic and curatorial methods. Using case studies from contemporary art exhibitions, she highlights practices that challenge normative structures, amplify marginalized voices, and rethink exhibition frameworks. The talk positions queer and crip curating as political and social correctives, showing how exhibition practices can disrupt entrenched institutional norms and reimagine the museum as a space for world-making and emancipatory encounter.
Sylvia Sadzinski is a curator, lecturer, and writer working at the intersection of contemporary art, curatorial practice, and feminist theory. Since 2019, she has been artistic co-director of the feminist, non-profit art space alpha nova & galerie futura in Berlin, where she develops exhibitions and discursive programs addressing current social and political issues. Her work focuses on queer-feminist curating and institutional critique. Since 2017, she has been researching and publishing on these topics across academic and artistic contexts. She currently teaches at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and other international institutions in the fields of curatorial theory and visual culture.