The inaugural curatorial team for the Toronto Biennial of Art was assembled to work together on the first two editions, in 2019 and 2022. Between Biennials, Candice Hopkins, Clare Butcher, Katie Lawson, Myung-Sun Kim, and Tairone Bastien have come closer together as a collective, to think, listen, (un)learn, and move alongside one another, shaping and realizing a collective vision through the challenges of the global pandemic, political upheaval, and a climate crisis. As they breathe together, they conspire. So risky, in viral times, that “collective breath” creates a climate of its own, a curatorial ethics. Collectivity supports a modality through which the exhibitions and programming curators look to new forms of kinship—with one another, their collaborators, human and non-human—and to new ideas, beliefs, and perspectives.

https://imagesfestival.com/programs/research-forum

2021 Research Forum_Toronto Biennial of Art

The Nest Collective is a multidisciplinary arts collective living and working in Nairobi. We are a collective with an intentionally decentralized practice. We are committed to all the pros and cons that come with working in this way: decentralizing is costly on time, and is a tough thing to communicate outwardly because of the expectation that hierarchies exist. That being said, this process has been crucial to the making and release of work whose layers and richness would not have been possible without it.

https://imagesfestival.com/programs/research-forum

2021 Research Forum_The Nest Collective

Images Festival is a leading presenter of independent film and media culture in dialogue with contemporary art. We aspire to elevate conversations between artists, scholars, and the public about the politics of the moving image.