Beyond Curatorship Reading Group

This Semester, MACS is delighted to be working with George Paton Gallery to facilitate an exciting new reading group on art and curatorship!

Open to all interested students, whether studying curatorship or something else, this group is designed to create an informal space to share ideas with your peers, discuss new perspectives from an array of carefully selected essays, and to expand our horizons and learning beyond the structure of the classroom.

We want this to be a low pressure environment - feel free to come along even if you haven't read the assigned texts! Tea, coffee, and snacks will be provided, and it will be a great opportunity to connect with your peers.

Readings will be shared through email to all MACS members and all who register their place through Humanitix - but you can also collect a free, physical reader from the George Paton Gallery at our first session!

FIRST TEXT: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, by Ursula K. Le Guin (1986)

We will be meeting fortnightly from Week 2 through to Week 10 - feel free to come to one, all, or as many as you like!

Dates and times are below, and each session will take place either in the George Paton Gallery or the Arts Lab next door.

WEEK 4

Wednesday March 25 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Focus text: Sophie Lewis. “With-Women: Grieving in Capitalist Time.” e-flux Journal, no. 111 (2020).
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/111/343916/with-women-grieving-in-capitalist-time.

WEEK 6

Wednesday April 15 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Focus text: Jodie Napurrula Ward and Rachel Paltridge. “The Marrapinti Women’s Camp.” In Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past & Present Together: Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists, edited by Fred Myers and Henry Skerritt, 62–74. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022.

Supplementary text: Hetti Perkins. “The Stories I Can Tell: Hetti Perkins in Conversation with Fred Myers and Henry Skerritt.” In Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past & Present Together: Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists, edited by Fred Myers and Henry Skerritt, 75–84. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022.

WEEK 8

Wednesday April 29 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Focus text: Zayaan Khan, Joss Hamilton Allen, and Marleen Boschen. “A Grain of Wheat, Saltwater Crocodile and Warrior Spirit Seed: Custodianship as Artistic Practice.” In Earth Ethics: Art, Institutions and Regenerative Practice, 106–125. Melbourne: MUMA / Monash University Publishing, 2025.

Supplementary text: Bawaka Country, Laklak Burarrwanga, Ritjilili Ganambarr, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Banbapuy Ganambarr, Djawundil Maymuru, Kate Lloyd, Sarah Wright, Sandie Suchet-Pearson, and Paul Hodge. “Meeting across Ontologies: Grappling with an Ethics of Care in Our Human–More-than-Human Collaborative Work.” In Earth Ethics: Art, Institutions and Regenerative Practice. Melbourne: MUMA / Monash University Publishing, 2025.

WEEK 10

Wednesday May 13, 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Focus text: Yuanyin Wang. “Beyond Departure, Return, and Rootedness: Seeing the Southwest Chinese Women through the Independent Lens.” LEAP, 2025.
https://www.leapleapleap.com/2025/10/beyond-departure-return-and-rootedness-seeing-the-southwest-chinese-women-through-the-independent-lens/

Supplementary text: Noeng Naz. “Voiceless Drifters in Blindfolds and Tik-Toking Workhorses on Reels: Chinese Workers in Non-Fiction Cinema.” LEAP, 2025.
https://www.leapleapleap.com/2025/02/voiceless-drifters-in-blindfolds-and-tik-toking-workhorses-on-reels-chinese-workers-in-non-fiction-cinema/