Temporary Collectivising:

If one is to work towards making or creating together for a moment in time, what then are the conditions for this. How can we set up more ethical and honest ways of addressing difference, our egos, our biases, our personal views when we enter forms of collaboration. Most collaborations are entered with good intentions, however the process always hits a snag. As a curator of people or curandera or administrator I like to think with others and through others, and centre forms of care to work in collaboration. Coming from a family of over 100 people with desert heritage in Northern Mexico collective action and collaboration have always been part of my practice and centres my politics with a key concept of If you are you then I am ok? Is it possible for us to translate this to Glasgow, to Britain, to the UK? My sharing and the conversation with GAMIS will open this up and invite you to also share your thinking.

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Temporary Collectivising is the first in a monthly series of online events taking a deep dive into governance. For each session GAMIS have invited a new thinker to expand on their research, experiences and expertise in the areas of; self-organising, collectivising, decolonising institutions and how GAMIS can embed access and inclusion into the fabric of our organisation.

These public-facing sessions run in tandem with the newly formed GAMIS Working Group. More info to follow.

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More on Teresa Cisneros:

Teresa Cisneros is a Chicanx Londoner. Originally from the Mexico-Texas border, ‘La Frontera’, she practices from where she is from not where she is. A curandera and arts administrator by choice, currently she is Inclusive Practice Lead at the Wellcome Collection but thinks of herself as a curator of people, part of agencyforagency, and recently at The Showroom she curated Object Positions to explore cultural equity, decolonial processes, and colonial administration (2016-18). Cisneros has worked with sorryyoufeeluncomfortable and numerous institutions including Nottingham Contemporary, Tate, Goldsmiths, and University College London to explore care, policy making, learning, colonial infrastructures, institutional change, and rethinking museums. In 2018, she published document0 a publication exploring our inability to ‘diversify’ the arts. She is interested in reconstructing systems and cultural institutions to begin working towards forms of transformational and institutional justice by holding staff accountable for their bad behaviours. Cisneros centres her life and work practice in collaboration, care relations, and collectivity.

Wellcome Collection: https://wellcomecollection.org/

document 0** : http://www.agencyforagency.com, a series of observations, a commentary, partly fictional written through encounters and my complicity in the arts exploring our inability to “diversify” the arts.

Decolonizing the Museum, the Curriculum, and the Mind https://www.academia.edu/43296713/Decolonizing_The_Curriculum_the_Museum_and_the_Mind. “Decolonizing: The Curriculum, the Museum, and the Mind” aims to identify where we are and where we might be going vis-à-vis the idea of decolonizing – better, the process of decolonization – in higher education, museums and galleries, and the ongoing legacies of colonization that shape structures and infrastructures, policies and protocols, mentalities and behaviours, and minds and bodies. Co-authors: Danah Abdulla, Teresa Cisneros, Andrea Francke, Lolita Jablonskiene, Ieva Mazuraite-Novickiene, Achille Mbembe, Almira Ousmanova, Ieva Pleikiene, Marquard Smith, and Michelle Williams Gamaker.

Material Memory is partnering with the UK-based DCDC conference to bring you three stories about the theme “crisis as a catalyst for change.” First, host Nicole Kang Ferraiolo interviews Angela Whitecross, who was capturing oral history testimonies of the UK National Health Service when COVID-19 broke out and found herself documenting the history she herself was living. In the second interview, Teresa Cisneros discusses her efforts to embed a practice of anti-racism and anti-ableism at the Wellcome Collection and her hopes of turning the logic of colonial administration against itself. Finally, Ferraiolo speaks with Henry Roberts, the youth activist who’s developing a climate action plan for the National Library of Scotland (and its 250 employees) as Scotland gears up to host COP26, the UN’s climate summit. The episode closes with a brief conversation with Matt Greenhall, one of the conference organizers, who reflects on common thread throughout these stories and how cultural organizations can turn moments of crisis into catalysts for change. https://material-memory.clir.org/crisis-as-catalyst-notes-from-dcdc-special-episode-1