Sidsel Nelund

Positioned between practice-based research, cyclical care methods for collective artistic change and critical thinking, Sidsel Nelund (PhD) work focuses on the crossover between knowledge production and wellbeing in the arts. Based in Helsingør, Denmark, Nelund is currently constructing a cross-national and serendipitous research project on FEAR in the art world using radical cyclical care methods.

Nelund has published internationally on practice-based research and knowledge production in contemporary art. She's former head of Institute for Art, Writing and Research at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and is currently part-time Associate Professor at Center for Practice-based Art Studies (PASS) – University of Copenhagen. In 2022, she initiated (art re.search) that supports and writes about practice-based research while also offering critical care for artists, writers, academics and curators through individual and collective professional development work. In 2023, she published the book Things in Contemporary Curating: The Aesthetics of the Right to Assemble and the Need to Withdraw with RSS Press.

Who’s Afraid of Fear? A para-curatorial response to a poly-critical moment

Who cares for art practitioners? In a moment of poly crises where art repeatedly is devalued and where artists and art institutions are expected to be part of solving the many crises, I see the need to develop and inhabit new positions that operate within the expanded, ecosystemic field of curating. This development especially happens in the last two aspects of my slowly evolving 5-finger practice (Trinh T. Minh-ha) of writing, researching, teaching, developing a collective methodology for art processes and space holding for artists and curators.
Working para-curatorially in collaboration with artists transforming the exhibition space into learning encounters and having handled repeated health issues, I relate to the original meaning of curating: to heal albeit without necessarily restoring to health, soundness, or normality. The focus of this For the Record presentation is on the project Who’s Afraid of Fear? taking place in Copenhagen and Santiago de Chile in 2026-27. Being an open book writing process using both the art space and the home as a place for learning encounters, the call for participation was extended to art practitioners. Who’s Afraid of Fear? aimed at creating a curatorial research setup for data collection on what art practitioners are afraid of to then fold those back into the book. The curatorial research set-up is based on the methodology Collective Creative Critical Care Chart, which will be at the center of this presentation and part of the 5-finger practice. The book-in-progress, now titled How to Survive the Artworld, attempts to hold the paradox of working creatively while infused with fear and intends to provide actionable methods and navigation paths for art practitioners on how to stay alive to the world.