CCS Bard Method Camp: Research inaugurates a new annual symposium at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College dedicated to examining the foundational practices that shape curatorial work and its adjacent fields. Conceived as a space for reflection on method rather than outcome, this first edition focuses on research—not as a neutral or preliminary stage, but as a situated, generative, and often unruly practice that underpins artistic, curatorial, and scholarly production.
Across disciplines, research names a wide spectrum of activities: observation, collection, speculation, verification, immersion, and translation. It may unfold systematically or intuitively, collaboratively or in isolation; it may take the form of archival excavation, fieldwork, embodied inquiry, or conceptual construction. Rather than stabilizing these differences, Method Camp approaches research as a set of evolving practices shaped by context, urgency, and desire. What does it mean to begin with a question? How does a line of inquiry take form, and for whom? At what point does research become legible—or deliberately resist legibility?
This one-day symposium, organized by Mariano López Seoane, consists of two 90-minute panels bringing together artists, curators, and scholars. The program foregrounds case-based reflections on process, offering insight into the intellectual, material, and affective dimensions of research across fields.
Schedule:
11:15am
Introductory remarks by Mariano López Seoane (Director of the Graduate Program and ISLAA Fellow in Latin American Art, CCS Bard)
11:30am - 1:00pm
First Panel - “Research: Repertoires, Repetition, and Immersion”
Moderator: Lara Fresko-Madra (Assistant Professor and Luma Fellow, CCS Bard)
Harris Feinsod (Ralph S. and Becky G. O’Connor Associate Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University)
Jonathan Gonzalez (Choreographer, artist, and writer)
Shannon Mattern (Director of Creative Research at the Metropolitan New York Library Council)
1:00pm - 2:30pm
Lunch Break
2:30pm - 4:00pm
Second Panel - “Research and its Double”
Moderator: Dawn Chan (Senior Lecturer, CCS Bard)
Suzanne Kite (Distinguished Artist in Residence and Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies, Bard College)
Eugenie Tsai (Curator and writer)
Jordan Weber (Artist and activist)