Independent Curators International (ICI) supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement. Curators are arts community leaders and organizers who champion artistic practice; build essential infrastructures and institutions; and generate public engagement with art. Our collaborative programs connect curators across generations, and across social, political and cultural borders. They form an international framework for sharing knowledge and resources — promoting cultural exchange, access to art, and public awareness for the curator’s role.
Josh Tengan

Josh Tengan is a Honolulu-based contemporary art curator. He was the assistant curator of the second Honolulu Biennial 2019, To Make Wrong / Right / Now. Since 2015, he has worked with Native Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi-based artists and cultural practitioners, through the arts non-profit Puʻuhonua Society, to deliver Hawaiʻi’s largest annual thematic contemporary art exhibition, CONTACT, which offers a critical and comprehensive survey of local contemporary visual culture. In 2019, he curated CONTACT, Acts of Faith, presented at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archive, which explored the role of religion in the colonization of Hawaiʻi through artistic interventions in the historic collections and an artist book library. He holds a Curatorial Studies M.A. with Distinction from Newcastle University (UK) and a B.A. in Fine Art from Westmont College.
involved in:
Notes for Tomorrow
Notes for Tomorrow is a new exhibition conceived by ICI, featuring artworks selected by alumni of the Curatorial Intensive from around the world to reflect on a new global reality ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic.
read more »2019 Curatorial Intensive in Auckland: Public Symposium
The Curatorial Intensive participants of the 2019 Auckland program will each present their project proposals that they have been developing over the course of the program.
read more »Curatorial Intensive Auckland 2019
In collaboration with Artspace Aotearoa, ICI presents the first Curatorial Intensive in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. This Intensive draws upon the diverse cultural environment from Auckland and the greater te Moana Nui-a-Kiwa Pacific Ocean region. This Intensive anticipates Artspace Aotearoa’s new programme ‘The Drift,’ which will examine and respond to alternative approaches to artistic education.
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