Process

May 15 – June 15, 2014

Curated by Erika Ashley Couto

Process seeks to explore the idea of research as creative impulse. How an art historian synthesizes their ideas is as important as what they argue. The ways in which disparate trains of thought come together to form a cohesive argument will vary from person to person. By displaying various traces of the research practices of students in the Department of Art History at Concordia, art historians become the subjects of discourse.

Rather than displaying the end products of a finished thesis or blog post or catalogue essay, the exhibition would aim to capture the beginning stages of student ideas, highlighting the importance of research as a creative and individualized process bearing an artful quality of its own. Meticulously color-coded notebooks, highlighted texts with notes scribbled in the sides, a concept map linking ideas – how we research is as varied as our topics of study. Process assembles these bits and pieces that often end up in the recycle bin or collecting dust on a bookshelf to the fore.