Canberra Brasilia: curating across culture and difference

The curatorial visual arts component of the Canberra Brasíia project began as a planned single exhibition of contemporary works from Canberra and Brasília artists, designed to travel to host galleries in both cities; the Canberra Contemporary Art Space in Canberra and the National Museum of Brazil in Brasília, in late 2021. The global onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020 signalled the end of this plan. As the reality of a very extended period of Covid changes in our world sank in, the project leads considered possible iterations that could accommodate the massive and ongoing restrictions experienced in both Brasilia and Canberra

During this period of rethinking, foregrounding of Canberra artists continued through student collaborative works stemming from the ANU 2020 and 2021 Masters course Collaborative Curating and Storytelling led by Dr Doyle Wawrzyńczak.

In mid-2020, the curators, Drs Doyle-Wawrzyńczak and Barbosa began working with one artist pair to develop the rules and methodology that would govern the new Covid iteration of the project. With support from the Scaffolding Co-creativity Project and the Australian Centre for Latin American Studies (ANCLAS) at ANU, a new iteration, with three artist pairs working collaboratively online with the curators has begun. The exhibition resulting from these collaborations will launch online in early 2022.