The Exhibition to Come

Essays on a Curatorship in Process

The Exhibition to Come: Essays on a Curatorship in Process

This course proposes a collective and process-based curatorial exercise developed from scratch. Starting from the idea of an exhibition that does not yet exist — with no defined theme, no predetermined space — participants will be invited to collaborate in the invention of the conceptual and formal paths that will shape a hypothetical exhibition, with the potential to materialize in an actual venue in the future.

Under the guidance of curator Marcela Vieira, the course is structured as a laboratory in which the participants’ individual productions serve as the starting point for the construction of a collaborative curatorial approach. Through affinities, contrasts, or frictions between these works, shared thematic threads will emerge to guide the development of the exhibition proposal.

While the journey is collective, it deeply values the singularity of each participating artist or researcher. The “in-progress” exhibition will therefore be the result of mutual listening, experimentation, and the shared development of ideas — a project that functions both as a formative process and as a speculative platform, covering the full spectrum of curatorial thinking, group dynamics, and artistic production in a deeply engaging environment open to artists, curators, and researchers.

Marcela Vieira is cofounder and curator of the art website aarea, a curatorial platform founded in 2017 that commissions and exhibits artworks designed especially for the internet. aarea’s activities also extend into a public program of curatorial projects, courses, seminars, and projects in partnership with other cultural institutions, such as Jeu de Paume (Paris), São Paulo Biennial (São Paulo), CCA Wattis Institute (San Francisco), Macba (Barcelona), Pro Helvetia (Switzerland), Salón Nacional de Bogotá (Colombia), NT2 (Montréal), among others. With multidisciplinary interests, Marcela is also one of the editors of Revista Rosa and a literary translator (French-Portuguese). She has a PhD in semiotics at the University of Paris 8, in partnership with the University of São Paulo.

Enrollment deadline: August 7, 2025

• Sign up
• Global Resident & Alumni Sign up