BILJANA CIRIC is an independent curator.

She was the co-curator of the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, 2015), curator in residency at Kadist Art Foundation (Paris, 2015) and a research fellow at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, 2016). In 2013, Ciric initiated the seminar platform From a History of Exhibitions Towards a Future of Exhibition Making with focus of China and Southeast Asia. The first seminar platform was hosted by St Paul St Gallery, AUT, New Zealand and currently, Ciric is working on a second assembly hosted by RAM in November 2018 related to exhibition histories with focus on the 1990's. In 2018 she established educational platform What Could / Should Curating Do.

11.22 A History of Exhibitions: Shanghai 1979-2006

This presentation takes exhibition histories as an academic field to come and discusses part of the research compiled in the book A History of Exhibitions: Shanghai 1979-2006 looking at the artists organized exhibitions in Shanghai between 1979-2006. The selection of exhibition in the above mentioned archive is focused primarily on group exhibitions with selected number of solo exhibitions, in which the artists had specific interest in rethinking the way the art work was promoted and presented in public.

When talking about exhibitions it is impossible not to think about institutions and their construct, so this presentation also hints at how museum as an institution has been introduced to China's context together with exhibitions looking further in history and modernity in local context.

It is still today rather exhibitions then museums that act as site of knowledge production which illuminates very different role for museums in relation to the Western art historical context in which museums, the development of modern art and the study of art history were and are still interconnected. This is one more reason of importance re-visiting exhibitions from the past understanding their impact in specific times and their connection with our practice today.