Curator-in-Residence

Mansion is seeking a curator-in-residence* for February – June 2018 (dates flexible). 

*While we are calling this a curator-in-residence position, application is by no means limited to professional curators. We take the term broadly to mean someone who organises and activates, and we are open to proposals from people of diverse backgrounds.

About the Residency

Today, we are seeking someone to be a curator-in-residence at Mansion (flexibly, either full or part-time) for a period of five months, who will be part of our community and propose additional ways of animating the space and activating its relationship with whatever public might benefit from it. The curator-in-residence will develop a modest program based on her or his own interpretation of Mansion’s life spectrum and modes of operation, which involves taking care of the turtles, recycling, and harvesting fruit from the trees in the garden, as much as supporting research and activism on “commoning”, utilising the library, hosting exhibitions from the neighborhood schools, etc. We hope this residency will benefit Mansion by the active participation of someone new to its community who will think critically with us about Mansion’s yet unexplored potentialities as a vehicle, catalyst, and testing-ground for multidisciplinariry and collaborative practices and projects in the context of Beirut.

The resident would be free to organise his or her own schedule and frame of work. He or she would:

•  Get to know current residents, and like everyone, spend time in the house and contribute to its activities and day-to-day life. This time can be shaped around the resident’s professional and family commitments. Mansion is a family-friendly space, where children are welcome, and studios can be used by residents every day of the week.
• Continue to pursue and develop their personal practice (in curation, arts, design, activism, gardening, academia, whatever) from Mansion in this time, learning from the space and using its resources.
• Develop, propose and realise a modest program, either open to the public or contained within the house. The nature of the resident’s intervention(s) is extremely flexible. It might include, but not be limited to: workshops, talks, music nights, performances, exhibitions, discussions, publications, etc. This program would be developed in conversation with Mansion’s residents, and could involve the participation of those from outside Mansion.

The residency includes:

• Private studio space including expenses (wifi, water, electricity), in Mansion.
• The option of living space in Mansion, if not based in Beirut – basic bedroom and bathroom.
• A modest budget for the realisation of the proposed program – to be managed with Mansion.
• The support of Mansion’s physical and human resources for the realisation of the program – this includes assistance in developing the program conceptually; introductions and connections to individuals and institutions in Beirut and elsewhere, graphic design, mailing list announcements for events, technical equipment, support with set-up, access and use of the house’s spaces (common space, library, dance space, sound studio, screen-printing studio, garden, kitchen, etc), and so on. Mansion’s residents come from diverse backgrounds and have a wide range of skills, a volunteer team will be formed to support the resident’s program and its activities.