Curatorial Research

Since the beginning of the 21st century, museums have increasingly proclaimed their value as agents for social change. This research examines the gap between the ubiquitous rhetoric and its implementation to museum exhibitions, and suggests a curatorial methodology with which to bridge that gap. In exploring the museum’s relationship to injustice, I have focused on one of the most pervasive human rights violation - intimate partner violence, with the aim of examining curatorial methodologies that may unlock the doors our communities have been conditioned to keep locked for centuries. The research spans beyond women’s issues into the social landscape that has shaped intimate partner violence, calling for a comprehensive view of a complex system. Drawing on a socio-ecological model of health, I examine the relationships between the individual, interpersonal, community, institutional, and cultural factors, and applied its dynamics to curatorial thinking. The research culminated in the design of a multidisciplinary exhibition "My Intimate Partner" that will open during Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2024 at Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA).