Curating the Village: Open Sessions

About

Curating the Village: Open Sessions is a two-day gathering of artists, curators, and cultural workers exploring caregiving as both a lived experience and a working condition. Spanning rest, performance, workshops, and conversation, the program brings together perspectives on caring for children, parents, elders, neighbours, the dying, and broader communities.

Developed through an ongoing research-creation initiative, Curating the Village approaches care not only as a subject, but as a force that reshapes how artistic and curatorial work is organized, timed, and sustained. Marked by interruption, exhaustion, and relational obligation, caregiving challenges dominant expectations of productivity, availability, and coherence in cultural labour.

While “care” circulates widely in contemporary arts discourse, it is still rarely accommodated structurally within programming or institutional time. Through short offerings, shared food, and collective discussion, Open Sessions considers what shifts when care is approached not simply as a trending theme, but as a method—one that foregrounds interdependence, negotiation, and the conditions that make work possible. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Presented by and in partnership with Critical Distance Centre for Curators. Supported by: Theatre Direct, Balancing Act Canada, Toronto Arts Council.

All below images by: Henry Chan