January 21–February 11, 2022
1262 Palmetto Drive
90013 Los Angeles CA
“unending beginnings” reckons with the precarity of our existence, presenting emergent strategies that consider worldmaking and survival on multiple levels, micro and macro, human and nonhuman, to imagine alternative futures. Nonhuman ecologies demonstrate resurgent possibilities, providing blueprints for survival that do not adhere to humankind’s historical narratives of dominance. “unending beginnings” is an ode to mushrooms, water, trees, cacao beans, jungles, forests, Indigenous resistance, and all other forms of life that do not abide by Western constructs of time. There is no end and there is no beginning, our livelihood is a multispecies entanglement dependent on collaboration and adaptability of all worlds, universes, and microcosms for survival.
“unending beginnings” aims to dismantle Western notions of progress as linear and individualistic, prompting us to consider the systems we value and whom those systems serve and inevitably harm. The artists included in the exhibition expand notions of community and kinship, embracing mutability and multiplicity over hegemonic systems of colonialism and capitalism that are intrinsically tied to destruction. Together these artists offer tools for envisioning a world organized otherwise, presenting a tentacular field of possibilities and unending beginnings.
“unending beginnings” is organized by USC Roski School of Art and Design and curated by Emma Christ, Nahui Garcia, Lauren Guilford, Leah Perez, Austen Villacis, and Ruei-Chen Tsai.
The USC Roski MA in Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere is an intensive graduate program in the practice and history of curating, studied through the lenses of critical theory, art history and visual culture. During two years of full-time academic seminars and professional training, students explore a range of curatorial practices applicable to diverse institutions and curatorial formats.
In three consecutive Practicum courses, students conceptualize and curate their own exhibition/curatorial project and produce a publication or alternative public interface. Additionally, students complete scholarly research and write on a topic of their choice for the MA Thesis.
Led by Director Jenny Lin, MA students work closely with USC Roski’s acclaimed scholars, curators, artists, and critics including Andrew Campbell, Amelia Jones, Suzanne Lacy, Karen Moss, and Anu Vikram.