UNESCO defines “research” as “creative and systematic work aimed at expanding the body of knowledge—including knowledge about humanity, culture, and society—and at developing new applications based on existing knowledge.” When we speak of research in general, we usually mean “scientific” research, which in fact encompasses a very heterogeneous spectrum of working models and methods. In addition to this general meaning, a particular diversity has emerged in the field of art over the past few decades: “artistic research,” a new mode that often draws on scientific models and critical investigative methods, manipulating, shifting, or simply applying them within predominantly artistic processes.
What, then, do we mean when we speak of “curatorial research”? How does it differ from scientific and artistic research? How does it relate to different conceptions of the archive? And—can it have a transformative (alchemical) effect on archival structures themselves? Drawing on concrete examples from professional practice, in this lecture, which was moderated by Nora Sternfeld, I addressed these and other related questions in order to outline some possible meanings of “curatorial research.”