‘An Exploratory, Irregular Tendency:’ Using Digital Gardens in Curatorial Research

As we grapple with this pandemic-altered reality, institutions seek for new ways to present curatorial research online. With a focus on considered, attuned, and meaningful ways for presentation, this essay will explore the possibilities afforded by presenting curatorial research through the concept of ‘digital gardens.’ I demonstrate that digital gardens occupy an unusual space between social media feeds and fully formed publications or journal articles. With an emphasis on sampling-ideas and work-in-progress, digital gardens encourage growth whilst expressing a need to be tended. This essay examines how we might lean into the framework of a digital garden in a bid to reify the process-driven and the experimental aspects of curatorial work. It discusses the practicalities of working with and within this framework, and how it might facilitate new possibilities in community building and critical dialogue. It also provides a proposition for resource sharing amongst like-minded institutions considering similar initiatives.
The Garage Journal, Выпуск 03 2021, Pages 118-130