[-empyre-] forward from Camille Baker

[Christina McPhee <christinamcphee@yahoo.com>]

Hello all /Professor Murray

I?ve been lurking on this list for awhile until I
found a topic I could respond to. I am so glad that
this is the new topic of the list at the moment and
not too soon for me.

I am in a precarious position that, with some limited
assistance from some faculty from my graduate program,
I am the only person with any related academic
background in New Media Arts that is involved in the
curatorial decisions and overall planning of the
up-and coming(in more ways than one) new media
festival New Forms Festival in Vancouver this year. In
addition, I am about to graduate from a cohort group
from a new graduate program here from in Vancouver,
that does not have any coursework on curatorial
practice or theory. So I?ve been on my own here a bit
as Lead Curator and Conference Director of the
festival.

I?ve been doing my own installation and theory-based
coursework, while teaching myself the curatorial
issues, both on the job and via these types of
discussion forums(and thank god for them!). I?ve been
feeling somewhat alone and floundering in the creation
of our curatorial, theoretical direction and mandate,
and am not entirely supported in the necessity of it
within our organization, which is primarily made up of
event planners that come from completely different
backgrounds. The only common ground that we have is
that we all agree and are prepared to do something
about the fact that there is a necessity in our city,
and even our part of North America, to have this
festival, so we?ve decided to make it happen. 

This festival has existed for a couple of years as
more of a no-budget grass-roots community arts
festival and with the addition of myself and one other
event management professional, we are trying to turn
this into a ?real? international and more widely
respected event.

However, with such radical changes come the
realization that we are in new territory and that all
eyes will be watching us. With limited experience in
organizing such things of this scale, it has come to
my attention that we need to develop a theoretical
curatorial grounding with institutional
professionalism, however, we?re also making it up as
we go along. 

So I am glad for this thread and hope that it may
provide more ideas and theory for us to add to our own
vision of new media curation for our growing annual
event.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Camille Baker - cbaker@sfu.ca

*	MASc Interactive Arts Candidate 
*	Research Assistant ? Whisper Project

Computing Arts and Design Sciences, Faculty of Applied
Science
Simon Fraser University, Surrey Campus, Surrey, BC
Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interactive Conference Director/Lead Curator
New Forms Festival 2003 Vancouver
http://www.newformsfestival.com  
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