ICI's Curatorial Seminar is a free, eight-session professional development program that supports emerging curators advance their capacity to establish a strong first-person approach to curating, support overlooked artists, and engage with local art communities while working outside of a large institution. This unique program offers opportunities to gain knowledge and resources through ICI’s network, share ideas, and think through developments in one's own curatorial practice. Through this process, the Seminar seeks to build an affirming network of peers who connect around shared values, and support the sharing of knowledge among early-career curators.
In the 2023 Chicago Curatorial Seminar, seven Chicago-based BIPOC curators will meet bi-monthly from September to December 2023 for discussion-based seminars—led by ICI staff, guest curators, artists, and arts professionals—and shared reading. Over the course of the seminar, each participant will also workshop a proposal for an exhibition or similar project and receive individual feedback from hand-selected mentors, who provide a unique perspective on the participant's curatorial practice. The group will also participate in curator-led site visits across Chicago at Rhona Hoffman Gallery with Julia Birka-White, Archive House with Barédu Ahmed, Edith Farnsworth House with Alberto Ortega, and The Renaissance Society with Karsten Lund.
