Sandretto

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo announces the curators selected for the sixteenth edition of the Young Curators Residency Programme Torino (February – May 2021): Sukanya Baskar (India), Shaelyn Hanes (United States), Eunice Tsang (Hong Kong). The coordinator and tutor of the sixteenth edition is Michele Bertolino.

The curators were selected by a jury composed of Antonia Alampi, director at Spore Initiative, Berlin and Zoé Whitley, director at Chisenhale Gallery, London.

The Young Curators Residency programme consists of a research residency in Italy that has the dual objective of developing the professional and critical skills of the young curators selected, while aiming at spreading knowledge of the Italian art scene on an international level. The residency provides the opportunity for the three selected candidates to get in contact and work with Italian artists, and furthers the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo’s commitment to the national contemporary art as well as its engagement with emerging curatorial practice. The in-depth research process, which sees the curators visiting over 200 artists’ studios, museums and art institutions across Italy under the guidance of a reference Italian curator, culminates in an exhibition curated with the support of the team of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Now in its 16th edition, the Young Curators Residency programme is still a unique example in Italy and a renowned project internationally, thanks to the quality of the training provided and the outstanding practice pursued by the alumnae and alumni who, in many cases, hold prominent positions in museums and institutions.

The selection of participants takes place in collaboration with the most renowned international programs for curators: Royal College of Art, London; Graduate Program, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; Curatorial Program, De Appel, Amsterdam; CuratorLab, Konstfack University of Arts, Stockholm; Independent Study Program, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; MFA Curating, Goldsmiths University of London; MA Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts, San Francisco; MAS/CAS Curating, Zurich University of the Arts. Starting last year, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has decided to involve new institutional subjects as promoters of the candidacies, with the aim of achieving ever greater representativeness on the international scene. In 2021 a collaboration was established with the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, which, through the establishment of a curatorial committee responsible for the nominations, proposed candidates from China and Southeast Asia. In 2022, the committee – coordinated by Billy Tang and Tiantian Xu – is composed of Merv Espina, Esther Lu, Alia Swastika, X Zhu-Nowell and Weiwei Zhang.

The residency will end with an exhibition at Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, the historic headquarters of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Guarene (CN). The preparation of the exhibition is preceded by the study of bibliographic material and the dialogue with artists, curators, gallery owners, collectors, and museum directors from the most relevant cultural production centers throughout Italy.

The residency is organised with the support of Compagnia di San Paolo.

Curators

Sukanya Baskar is a curator and researcher, with a focus on photography and moving images. Her practice, involving graphic design, spatial design and curatorial research has evolved alongside archives. She has worked on a number of magazine and book design projects including Witness / Kashmir 1986–2016 / Nine photographers, featured on the New York Times’ list of Best of photobooks of 2017. As a researcher, she has been with organizations such as the Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru, Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi, Light Industry and the UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, New York. Her current research involves studying the overlapping histories of photography and magazine culture in India. She is a graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and the Center for Curatorial Studies, (CCS) at Bard College, New York.

Shaelyn Hanes is a San Francisco-based curator and writer whose work explores the radical potential of communal imagination. She has supported curatorial projects at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art. From 2016 to 2019, Hanes oversaw the finances and operations of Creativity Explored – a nonprofit studio and gallery for adult artists with developmental disabilities. She is currently Art Collections Coordinator at Zlot Buell + Associates, an art advisory firm specializing in contemporary art. Hanes earned an MA in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts in 2021 and a BA in Interdisciplinary Field Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010.

Eunice Tsang (she/her) is a curator, artist, researcher and journalist based in Hong Kong. She founded and curates Current Plans (previously known as Present Projects), an experimental art space that encourages cross-disciplinary dialogues through exhibition-making. Previously, she set up the Asian Artist Book Library in Tai Kwun Contemporary, focusing her research on independent publishing in Asia and modes of creative distribution. Her curatorial interests lie in how artists develop new languages and symbols in times of political change, and how to maneuver the liminal space between legal and illegal, fact and fiction – using magic-realism, sarcasm, humor and myth-making.

Coordinator

Michele Bertolino (he/him) is a curator and researcher living between Turin and Rome. He currently collaborates with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo as coordinator of the Young Curators Residency Program and curator of the public program for Verso. He is editing the publication “Porpora” – a photographic book of Lina Pallotta’s work. In 2020 he was visiting lecturer in the LAB.ZONE PETROLIO, class led by Lili Reynaud-Dewar at HEAD Genève. From 2018 to 2021 he worked as social content creator for Fondazione La Quadriennale di Roma and assistant curator of the 2020 Art Quadriennale FUORI, at Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Between 2018-2019 he was Junior Curator at The Institute of Things to Come with which he continued collaborating in 2020-2021 as curator of the research project “Guerrilla against the Uncessing Hostilities of the Livings”. In 2016 he founded with Bernardo Follini, Giulia Gregnanin and Sebastiano Pala, the curatorial collective Il Colorificio. He graduated in philosophy of art at the University of Turin and in 2015-2016 he participated in CAMPO15, a course of curatorial studies at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.