Curating Under Lockdown was a conversation between Curatorial Intensive alumna Övül Ö. Durmusoglu, Joanna Warsza, Elena Sorokina, and Curatorial Intensive alumnus Tiago de Abreu Pinto, about three interrelated public art projects held in Berlin (Die Balkone), Paris (No Straight Line), and across Chile (Al Aire, Libre), in April and May of this year. The curators presented the scope of each project and discuss how they activated their communities during quarantine, claimed public space for art, and structured their responsive approaches on values of solidarity, generosity, and mutual support.
Die Balkone was a public art exhibition involving artists living in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, during Easter weekend in April 2020. The project brought life to the neighborhood during quarantine and utilized the artists’ balconies as an extension of their domestic spaces into the public realm to display work and activate the streets. It was an example of a responsive, independent curatorial project taking place even at a time when art spaces and museums had to remain closed opening other possibilities and raising questions about public art as a social glue overcoming the isolation.
