The Discursive and Curatorial Productions initiative is organized by faculty and graduate students of the Ph.D. in Art History, Theory & Criticism and the Ph.D. in Art Practice program of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. It is a space of critical dialogue and experimentation in curatorial and discursive practices.  Originally housed in the Structural and Materials Engineering Building, the initiative reflects the intersection and cross-fertilization of new forms of structural and material intelligence, new technologies, new platforms, and their paradigmatic shifts for theoretical models of curatorial practices and criticism. 

This initiative creates workshops for research into art practice, the aesthetics of materialization, and the cognitive and pedagogical potential of aesthetics. Our events, workshops, colloquiums and symposia are modeled with an understanding of the relevance of generating theoretical, exhibitionary, and conceptual knowledge as well as experimentation in art production. We study materials and new structures that generate deeper transformations in the examination of research as practice, emerging circuits and cartographies of curatorial exchange, and patterns of transformation related to the globalization of art markets and shifting modes of art exhibition.

The DCP produces the publication Unweave, a series of research notebooks, which revolves around seminars, exhibitions, and research projects produced by the initiative. The curatorial committee of the Discursive and Curatorial Productions initiative curates exhibitions for SME 406, as well as the SME gallery, which explore the manifestations and practices of theoretical research.

Image: Cayetano Ferrer, Proposal for a Las Vegas Casino, Model 3, 2010. Installation view