Art Basel Awards Summit | Curating, decentered: Candice Hopkins, Shanay Jhaveri, and Eungie Joo

Candice Hopkins, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project, Milan, New York
Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican Centre, London
Moderator: Eungie Joo, Curator, San Francisco

From scholars to globe-trotting talent spotters, the role of curators has radically changed over the last century. Yet too often, a Western, male-centric perspective has endured. In this panel, three leading curators – Candice Hopkins, a citizen of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation and Executive Director of Forge Project in Taghkanic, New York; Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts at London’s Barbican Centre; and Eungie Joo, an internationally recognized curator known for championing socially engaged and transnational practices – reflect on how curating can confront inherited hierarchies and reshape the telling of cultural narratives.

Together, they consider how curators contribute to the writing of history and explore the opportunities that arise when working outside conventional formats and institutions.

This panel is part of an hour-long session exploring the agents shaping the culture of tomorrow.

Candice Hopkins has been nominated in the Curator category. She is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Milan, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explore the intersections of history, contemporary art, and Indigeneity. She is executive director and chief curator of Forge Project, Taghkanic, New York.

Shanay Jhaveri has been nominated in the Curator category. He is the head of visual arts at the Barbican Centre, London. Previously, he was the associate curator of international art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Eungie Joo has been nominated in the Curator category. Her practice revolves around sustained relationships with artists through the production of new work, activating discursive and performative platforms, and exhibition making. She has served as the inaugural curator and head of contemporary art at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; curator of ‘Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible’; director and curator of education and public programs at the New Museum, New York; and commissioner of Haegue Yang’s Korean Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Joo earned her PhD in ethnic studies from University of California, Berkeley.