Agata Jaworska is this year's curator of the third edition of Marres Currents, the annual exhibition that shows a selection of work of artists that this year finish their education at the Academies of Fine Art and Design in the international region of Maastricht.

For Marres Currents #3, Jaworska forms a curatorial team with Ina Hollmann, Eva Jäger and Guillemette Legrand, (former) students of the Design Academy Eindhoven.

The curatorial team visited all the final presentations of the art students. At the end of august they will present their longlist.

Follow their search here Marres Currents #3.

Agata keeps us up-to-date about her quest. Read her blogposts here:

Hereby the starting proposal we received from Agata Jaworska back in March, before she and the team saw any of the shows.

My Practice, My Politics

Man is a political animal. Whether calculated or unintentional, explicit or implicit, there is an embedded political dimension to everything we do. My Practice, My Politics will explore how art, too, is inherently political.

Through this assignment, I would like to investigate the ways in which the personal and the political intersect; how these realms come together in art, in an art practice and in the context in which art is encountered.

Within this, several dichotomies will be challenged: rational vs. emotional, subjective vs. objective, private vs. public, selfish vs. altruistic. In other words, the project will seek emerging manifestations, interfaces and exchanges between the “me” and the “others”.

My Practice, My Politics will seek to portray the way in which artists operate and position themselves on what is ultimately a political stage – the channels they use, the language and tools they employ, the aesthetics they manifest, and the audience they engage. Of particular interest is the role of subjectivity in telling political stories, the relationship between aesthetics and politics, and the real-world need for imagined alternatives.

The exhibition will seek not only to reflect upon the art scene of the immediate present, but also on the current state of political affairs. I hope that by looking at what artists are doing, we can gain insight into what is happening in politics today (and what may happen in the near future).

Simultaneously, the project will explore ways in which a curatorial practice and political expression can overlap. The intention is not to make any political statement in particular, but rather to study the ways in which political statements are being made, and to reflect upon which political statements and methods are relevant today.

This proposed direction is a starting point, which inevitably will be modified and perhaps even changed entirely. It is a hypothesis. By striving for an explicit argument (a visual or spatial essay perhaps), Marres Currents #3 will not only present emerging talents, but also will contribute to current discussions on the role of the artist in the political sphere. The presentation will formulate a position that can be discussed and deepened.

Agata Jaworska

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