The practical aspect of this research has been the curation of a series of hybrid exhibitionary spaces. These exhibitionary forms have resulted from creating a series of interfaces under the umbrella of 'that’s contemporary',a non-profit organization that I co-founded and have run since 2011. In this thesis, the practice of curating is taken to be the operation of 'inscribing' a program of actions (i.e.a script) into the design of interfaces; 'prescribing' these actions to the users of these interfaces; and 'describing' how users actually use the interface. My research argues that interfaces, by being used, unfold hybrid exhibitionary spaces. They are hybrid because the interfaces through which the exhibition is used and produced fluctuate between digital and physical space, in a hybrid zone. In this sense, physical exhibitions are curated along with the organization of their multiple replications on digital and non-digital interfaces. My concept of hybrid exhibitionary space is shaped by theory (Lefebvre, 1991; Massey, 2005; Kennedy, 2012)that understands space to be produced by social relations meaning that users create the exhibitionary spaces they inhabit. From this point of view, the exhibition does not pre-exist its users, rather it takes place in an unremitting process of use, opening up the possibility for its multiple descriptions to be made. This idea of use as a form of exhibition production is applied to the concept of 'network curation', which refers to a type of collective curatorial process that is engendered by users, reiterating and re-contextualizing the exhibition along digital networks. Inspired by Actor Network Theory, the written component of this research has been interlaced together into an exhibitionary description. This method acts to document while, at the same time, it re-performs the‘curating’ and ‘curatorial’ processes that originally gave form to these exhibitionary interfaces. In this way, the thesis turns into an interface that mediates between its exhibited objects – my practice – and its users – the readers – while, simultaneously 'enacting' the research along this process of mediation.

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My intention is to contribute to the field of exhibition-making a repertoire of presentation modes, previously not analysed or documented, that can be applied to the display of fashion in the museum and which will extend those techniques currently available to the exhibition-maker to create meaningful and stimulating exhibition environments. Part 1 contextualises my investigation, through discussion of the exhibition as source material, the methods employed to execute the research and analysis of relevant literature. Part 1 concludes with an introduction to ModeMuseum, Antwerp, which is the primary location for my research. Part 2 details the identification, description and definition of a repertoire of presentation modes, classified and distinguished as innovative through comparative analysis of over 100 exhibitions visited for this research, alongside investigation of the exhibition formats and structures that support deployment of the modes. Part 3 relates the application of the presentation modes to the construction of a 'fashion autobiography‘ in the form of a proposal for a hypothetical exhibition, through examination of the processes utilised to develop the exhibition narrative and detailed account of the proposal in its final realisation. In conclusion, I will critically reflect on the research executed, underlining the interrelationship of the theoretical and practice-based activities. Finally, I will detail opportunities taken to disseminate this research, and indicate possible directions for continued investigation.

Since hitting mass markets in the 1920s, refrigerators have occupied a lovable corner not just in American kitchens but also in American culture. The story of humankind has always been the story of food, around which we congregate, negotiate power, and explore methods of control. As the U.S. transitioned to industrial, mechanical convenience in the twentieth century, refrigerators replaced hearths as household communication centers, and it has become commonplace to decorate refrigerator surfaces with photographs, keepsakes, lists, and other items of visual culture. As meaningful, expressive arrangements, the curatorial dimensions of such displays have called for their investigation. From January to June of 2013, the Other White Cube Project studied the cultural phenomenon by collecting photographs and questionnaires online at theotherwhitecube.com. From 200 submissions, the project connected activities at home with institutional roles at large. The educational effort performed post-museum theory, in which audiences and institutions share power, build community, and promote awareness. By equating museums with everyday spaces, curators with everyday people, and art with everyday objects, the Other White Cube Project approached three keys to learning in art museums - comfort, relevance, and readability. The project also examined the aesthetic, social, and practical barometers that direct daily choices, which shape consciousness and subsequent interactions with space. In that sense, everyone is a curator - of some kind and of some place.

Cette thèse se veut une réflexion sur l’articulation entre les théories postcoloniales et les pratiques curatoriales de l’art contemporain ; elle cherche en effet à souligner les perméabilités et la relation dialogique qui se sont instaurées entre celles-Ci. Il ne s’agit pas d’expliquer les théories postcoloniales appliquées aux pratiques curatoriales et d’en donner une sorte de mode d’emploi, mais plutôt de les visualiser. Par visualiser nous n’entendons pas illustrer, ou fournir une translittération de la théorie, mais bien donner à voir les différents développements et incarnations de celle-Ci. Les contextes britannique et américain des années 1980 et du début des années 1990 font l’objet de la première partie de la thèse dans la mesure où tous deux sont à la fois les lieux d’émergence des théories postcoloniales et des sociétés clés de l’histoire coloniale. La deuxième partie s’attache à la seconde moitié des années 1990 et au début des années 2000, un moment où les théories postcoloniales deviennent des outils indissociables de l’analyse de la globalisation. Enfin, la troisième partie propose d’envisager un monde post-Occidental au XXIe siècle, post-Occidental dans le sens où l’éclatement de la notion de centre/périphérie nécessite des déplacements et des réajustements épistémologiques dont les expositions d’art contemporain sont d’actifs vecteurs, particulièrement celles cherchant à articuler un propos postcolonial / This thesis is a reflection on the relationship between postcolonial theory and curatorial practices in contemporary art, with an emphasis on the permeabilities and dialogic relationship that has developed between them. It does not seek to explain postcolonial theory as applied to curatorial practices or to provide a so-Called user manual, but rather to visualize them. By “visualize” we do not mean to illustrate or present a transliteration of the theory, butinstead to note various developments and embodiments thereof. The United Kingdom and America during the 1980s and early 1990s are the subject of the first part of the thesis to the extent that they are both places of emergence of postcolonial theory and also key societies in the context of colonial history. The second part focuses on the second half of the 1990s and early 2000s, a time when postcolonial theory as a tool become inseparable from the analysis of globalization. Finally, the third part proposes to consider a post-Western world in the 21stcentury, post-Western in the sense that the dissolution of the concept of center/periphery requires certain shifts and epistemological adjustments for which contemporary art exhibitions are active vectors, particularly those seeking to articulate a postcolonial discourse

Contemporary art spaces are typically structured in accordance with a visual paradigm. However, sound has the capacity to leak into other spaces and does not conform to visual logics. Still, sounding artworks are frequently presented in these spaces. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of leaking sounding works within art spaces with an emphasis on the sensory experience of sound, and to further the understanding of how this can be operationalised curatorially. The research is focused on these questions: How is sound operating to produce experiential effects in the respective exhibition situations? What are the transformative potentials of sounding works in art spaces? What are the curatorial implications of these effects? The study investigates two cases, the exhibitions Mother Courage and Her Children (2022) and Undamming Rivers (2022) that both provide examples of the interactions of sounding works in contemporary art spaces. The material is gathered through observation and analysed using the theory of performativity. The analysis defines a set of terms that describe different experiences of sounding works in the art spaces. Furthermore, these effects are shown to operate transformatively on the art event as aspects of a contemporaneous production and reception of the art. The concluding discussion elaborates on the curatorial implications of these terms in the curation of sounding works to show how sonic leakage facilitates definition of space, movement through space, and a layering of experience.

The Australian Government Internet database, the World War Two Nominal Roll, is problematised and then analysed as a document of patron-sponsored alternative journalism as described by Atton and Hamilton, because it attempts to fulfill functions previously completed in Australia by newspaper publishers and television producers. These functions – of discovering, establishing, editing, contextualizing, recording and publishing memory – have long been regarded as roles of journalism. Later they have been seen as roles also of literary publishing and documentary filmmaking, and most recently of online records management. They became especially evident in the 1990s, the decade of the 50th anniversary of many World War II events, during which many anniversary supplements were published in Australian newspapers and in television documentaries. Partly as a result of this major anniversary, the Australian Government undertook the tasks of discovering, establishing, editing, recording, contextualizing, and publishing World War II military memories as an online database known as the World War Two Nominal Roll. The enactment of this large task required the engagement of a subcontractor who tendered on the basis of skills in records management, and the adoption of a methodology which offered some level of quality assurance of the outputs. The problematisation of this project suggests that the engagement of the subcontractor and the methodology adopted for the World War Two Nominal Roll are analogous to the engagement of professionalized journalists, and the adoption of recognised journalistic methods, for the publication of a media artifact such as an anniversary supplement. In that light, this thesis compares the error rates evident in the Nominal Roll with the literature of error rates in contemporary newspapers, and compares some of the audience effects of publishing the Nominal Roll with those of publishing newspapers. This involves a comprehensive examination and critique of the physical nature of the Roll and the processes of its production. The analysis in the first place suggests that the database Roll is overall more trustworthy than established journalism artifacts but in detail more susceptible to errors of fact and context and less likely to be corrected. This leads to the second assessment that the publication of the database Roll is less effective than newspapers as a means of memorialisation. Finally, the findings suggest that the processes deployed in the compilation of the database Roll would have benefitted from the adoption of aspects of ordinary journalistic routines not used by the database publishers. Reasons for this are proposed and discussed.