How Digital Art Curation Can Create A Community
Digital Art (Scroll to bottom for Podcast)
What impact can digital art have on an online and offline community?
How can digital art enable accessibility for viewers around the world?
The online platform (aka the internet) seems to be the prime hub and resource for businesses and individuals alike. With more and more people facing just a screen, creators and practitioners are beginning to turn their work into a digital medium.
Whether you’re a creative trying to establish yourself online, or an art institution who provides online resources and information, virtual video calls can be relied on for all these types of activities. This is an example of expanding resilience and reliance on the digital age.
Mexican Curator, Doreen A. Ríos, started up [ANTI] Materia when she first discovered digital art 5 years ago. She explains that [ANTI] Materia was an online platform to initially provide information for audiences to access resources that seemed relevant to the digital spectrum. Throughout time, it grew into a platform that has choreographed and curated incredible digital exhibitions and collaborations to share with the world.
Digital Art And Its Community
Since the launch of [ANTI] Materia, it has brought an abundance of people to her platform. It has opened up a new world filled with amazing opportunities to network and reach out to creatives that share the same passion and drive globally.
She also explains the warmth of how having people in your community who can help and guide one another is very reassuring and supportive especially as the path of an artist can be a lonely pursuit.
Digital art has been a medium that has been around for last few decades. But, only recently has it become more recognisably popular. This is because of the forever evolving technology advancement and the widespread of mass production and media.
Doreen is also a digital art curator and university lecturer. She discusses her experiences in interacting with the digital arts, meeting artists through an online community and her opportunities to educate.
The Idea Of Accessibility
Further conversations were discussed about the research Doreen hopes to submit for her PhD application. She talks about the accessibility of art through the different screens and devices we all have. She hopes to improve accessibility by having something physical to handle before initiating with the digital realm.
Currently, during a COVID-19 lock down, there is a strong reiteration that is mentioned about how reliant people are on online activity. Without the internet and online platforms, such as social media, things would look very different.
Doreen discusses the benefits of creatives having this time to showcase themselves but also it being extremely competitive.
Diversity And Inclusion
With community, comes diversity and inclusion. As a creative practitioner, Doreen expresses the importance of addressing diversity and inclusion in curatorial projects and exhibitions. Art institutions are great platforms that can create spaces to raise those important questions and also to answer them.
Doreen discusses various curated projects at The Centre of Digital Culture in Mexico City that raises awareness for inequality in various diverse topics and issues. She explained initially, it was a project at university which was sparked when she realised the implications in the lack of diversity.
She realised she chose seven artists and six of them were men and only one was a woman. So, the fact that she and fellow students and teachers did not raise this was a problem. For Doreen, this opened her eyes and she made a promise to herself that this does not happen again.
Is The Future Going To Be Online?
The sudden worldwide lock-down has made all of us very aware of our online presence which has raised awareness for creatives to think digitally. We are recognising the opportunities that can be made online, whether that be a small community or a large scale community.
There needs to be a strong sense of commitment once being active in the digital realm of art but this where an individual can also grow, create and learn. One needs to understand the processes and structures of a digital platform to truly see your idea fruition.
Having accessibility to online resources, whether that be information, portfolios or businesses; they can all lead to the creation of an online community. Being able to connect and share digital art with one another is the new way of curating exhibitions.
To join Anthea and Doreen in this discussion about the impact of digital art communities listen to our latest podcast, press play below: