Throughout its history, ICI has engaged in exhibitions that celebrate the “score,” like The Presence of Absence curated by Nina Felshin. Since the 70s, many artists have used instructions as a conceptual method to create artworks that evolve, grow, adapt, and respond to the times in which they are presented and the people who engage with them.
In the 2010s, we developed a model of touring exhibitions that, like artists' instructions, would adapt to the contexts of every hosting art space in new ways. In projects like our "exhibitions in a box" series, hosts were invited to adapt, expand, and reconfigure these exhibitions, which would also open a shared dialogue between curators in the field.
Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the landmark exhibition do it began as a curatorial thought experiment: What if all of an exhibition's artworks took the form of "do-it-yourself descriptions" from artists, for viewers to follow? ICI launched the first do it tour in 1997, and relaunched the tour in 2013 with 50 newly commissioned pieces. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we published do it (home) with 55 artists' instructions available for free online.
do it became a global phenomenon that continues to emerge around the world in new forms. Each time a gallery presented the exhibition was completely different, and they produced community events and enactments uniquely informed by local needs and interests. Many variants have also been created, including do it (TV), do it (party), and do it (in school).
ICI exhibitions connect with audiences over many years and in many contexts. Many have embraced the idea of changing in each presentation, and often use a "score" model—where an exhibition is treated like a piece of music, to be enacted anew again and again.
Soundings: An Exhibition In Five Parts represents a new height in the exhibition as score, with artworks that are activated in new ways. Co-curators Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson ask: How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization?