Curatorial Guidelines
The Anthologies Assembly, London 2025, extends a call for proposals for a vibrant, student-guided convergence of research inquiry and creative exploration. Building upon the inaugural assembly, participants are encouraged to embrace "research-based creative practice" as a means of knowledge generation where diverse disciplines intersect and boundaries blur. We welcome proposals that illuminate PhD research, including nascent "works-in-progress," emphasizing the value of ongoing inquiry. Guided by student feedback expressing both a desire for grounding in practice and community as well as exceptional moments that inspire, we aim to create spaces for genuine encounters and shared learning, where participants leave with lasting impressions on research and creative endeavors that continue to spark curiosity throughout the year.
Our curatorial framework centers on the concept of investigation, as both a rigorous pursuit and an introspective exploration. Drawing from its etymological roots, we conceive of investigation as a tracing towards something no longer present—a turning-towards truths hidden or lost in time; and a nuanced examination of practices, be they social, political, or personal. We invite proposals that explore:
- Investigation as a generative action, a consideration and analysis of our roles as practice-based researchers. How might we investigate our own processes and practices?
- An artistic articulation of anxieties related to surveillance, erasure, and contemporary socio-political pressures, the heightened sense of threat and being watched/observed/erased investigated that many of us feel collectively and/or individually at this moment in time.
- An engagement with the etymology of investigation as an inward turn or a tracing back through signs (vestiges) to discover concealed or hidden narratives.
- The exploration of concealment and evasion as artistic strategies, ways of eluding investigation and leaving no trace.
- A query into how we conduct investigation in our work. What methodologies may transcend aggressive and invasive research practices, emphasizing instead the synthesis of discovery-through meticulous examination and making-with verification?
- Questioning the ethics of disclosure and the nature of hidden knowledge - are there secrets or kinds of information that should remain hidden? Is part of our work as creative practitioners to conceal as much as reveal, depending on the nature of the investigation and who is doing the investigating? Are there things that should remain concealed from or in our own investigations - or even, from us as investigators?
We also invite proposals or submissions that do not engage with these questions at all, or that inquire in other ways not imagined here. Work that is representative of student research interests is wholly valid and will be considered equally. We welcome collaborative and group proposals and submissions.
Feel free to submit multiple manifestations of a project (material, physical, performative, sonic, etc); something in the main space with something in the studio space or outside; could be two parts of the same project; or for example, a material work that exists on the gallery wall with an accompanying time-oriented movement piece, et al. We strive to include all proposed work, and will only decline 1) if the spaces do not support the requirements of the proposal, and 2) proposals that are beyond controversy and deliberately offensive. We will not decline until having had a discussion with the artist(s).
Recognizing the importance of space, we are pleased to announce access for the entire duration of the residency to both a dedicated gallery space at Borough Road Gallery and an additional studio at the new London South Bank University location. We intend for these dedicated spaces to facilitate experimental and process-oriented exhibitions, fostering imaginative potential and embracing our program's transnational character, providing a nourishing environment for connection and exchange.
In direct reaction to the rhetoric and actions of erasure espoused by the current American administration as elsewhere, we emphasize that we champion intersectionality, difference, and co-relating. We encourage submissions that amplify marginalized perspectives across ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. We advocate for embodied approaches that prioritize personal needs alongside conventional academic and artistic paradigms.
We hope that the London residency will be a place where we as creative practitioners and researchers may come together to connect, share, and be inspired.
