How to choose experts to organise a pavilion at the Venice Biennale?

Yesterday, on February 28th, a public discussion was held on the organisation of the Kazakhstan pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Representatives of the art sphere: architects, artists, curators, art managers, activists proposed to create an expert council.

This year, the Kazakh pavilion will be opened at the 59th Venice Biennale. It will be presented by the interdisciplinary ORTA team. During the deliberation, it was discussed that the organising the pavilion at the next biennale in order to choose new participants from Kazakhstan transparently and commonly.

"In the UK, the expert council changes every year. It includes directors of various art institutions. In Georgia, an expert council is appointed, which consists of artists and art critics with certain qualifications. There are countries with only three members of the council, in some countries might have eight members. The Expert Council itself nominates its participants, which might include not only artists, but also curators — a whole team of artists and curators. It happens by holding an OPEN-CALL and they choose by voting," said Meruyert Kalieva, director of Aspan Gallery. Meruyert Kaliyeva also noted that a special budget is needed for the OPEN-CALL.

"Regarding the expert selection. Maybe we could try the lottery. For example, to develop some mechanisms and nominate 300-400 cultural figures, among whom it will be played out. The filter that would help nominate these cultural figures is a big question. But then there should be some kind of lottery, a random method," suggested artist Zoya Falkova.

Art critic, curator Malika Urazgalieva noted the need to involve artists from the regions. She proposed to include art patrons in the expert council.

Meruyert Kalieva later added: "I had an idea that the curators of the Central Asian Pavilion could be good representatives of the council as they already have experience in participation, there were five and ten curators.”

According to the artist Suinbike Suleimenova, it will be effective to choose an expert council members in OPEN-CALL format. "We would be sure that the experts are chosen by the people," says Suinbike.

Summing up, moderator Adil Nurmakov asked art activists to prepare a model in their way that would help with democratic creation of an expert group for the next meeting.

Kamila Sadykova, especially for Art of Her