The answer as to why and how art makes us feel is elusive. This thesis does not intend to answer this question in full, but rather point to curatorial strategies that can aid in this outcome. I begin by defining affect as the space created between the viewer and the artwork that when engaged with, can allow for an intuitive emotive response. I then discuss methodologies of curating exhibitionary affect that transform the exhibition into an event site and the viewer’s encounter with art towards a dynamic experience. My practice-based curatorial research resulted in two exhibitions: Process (2022) featuring works by Beverley Freedman, Erin Stripe, mihyun maria kim, Reshmi Bisessar, Sara Shoghi, and Vicky Talwar; and a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end (2023) featuring the work of Ella Gonzales, Meg Ross, and Meichen Waxer. The works exhibited engage tactics of tension, revealing and resolve to encourage affect, as well as site-sensitivity and site-specificity to encourage the event. Both exhibitions ask the viewer to actively engage. Through a discussion of these works my thesis posits that by curating for exhibitionary affect one can disrupt hierarchical ways of viewing art – where the exhibition provides only one reading – to instead privilege the viewer’s individual interpretation based on an affective experience. I also argue that curating affective experiences acknowledges a multitude of ways of knowing and seeing, and is a way of curating towards accessibility.
Keywords: art, affect, exhibitionary affect, feeling, curation, curatorial practice, contemporary, exhibition.