The Curatorial Connective (CX) was developed in response to the question:

'How do we grow the critical middle between commerce and the academy?'

Held for the first time in 2021, and online, this year's CX invites Mark Godfrey, Kerryn Greenberg, and Rudi Minto de Wijs to A4's lab, where they will offer emerging curators a series of seminars over a week-long programme. Mark, Kerryn and Rudi are the directors of New Curators, a twelve-month training-by-doing course in curating that will welcome its first cohort to the programme in 2023. New Curators was developed in 2021 during the period in which Kerryn and Mark were A4 Fellowship recipients. The CX will test a component of the New Curators' curriculum through a series of thematic seminars that explore five research topics:

How artists relate to technology;
Environmental justice;
Spirituality, ritual and myth;
Censorship and self-censorship;
Restitution.

In addition to these formal sessions, the participants will visit local institutions, engaging with cultural practitioners from across the arts ecology and visiting sites of historical resonance in the city. We have also invited Kim Gurney to discuss her research about independent art spaces throughout the African continent, published in her book Panya Routes (2022).

Envisioned as a capacity- and network-building programme for emerging curators on the continent as well as those working with a focus on the Global South, the second iteration of the Curatorial Connective followed an open call for applications that invited an 'expanded definition of the curatorial'. Eight young curators were chosen by the selection committee to participate in the intensive one-week programme.