Bookshop Situation Series: close-enough, How to Navigate Art Institutions

Welcome to the release of How to Navigate Art Institutions, a project and publication by curatorial initiative close-enough.

Ifra Shariq and Yul Cho embarked on a collaborative journey for their curatorial project in the Master’s Program in Curating Art at Stockholm University. This collaboration led to the birth of close-enough, a curatorial initiative driven by their shared experiences, frustrations, concerns, and reflections on the Swedish art scene. It became clear through their candid conversations that there was a pressing need to bridge the gap between art institutions and underrepresented communities, making art more accessible and engaging for all. The name close-enough is a playful reference to the distance art institutions sometimes maintain from their audiences, hinting at an invisible line that people are afraid to cross for fear of getting too close to or touching the art.

Their collective experiences under this initiative culminated in the publication titled How to Navigate Art Institutions, which is the outcome of a highly process-based exploration grounded in Shariq and Cho’s interactions with diverse individuals and groups.

Through How to Navigate Art Institutions, Shariq and Cho delve into the dynamics of exclusion present in Swedish art institutions and strive to identify barriers both within and around them. Each chapter contributes to a cumulative summary of the insights and discoveries as they conducted research, held discussions, and experimented with different methods to overcome these challenges.

The publication has been produced as the final degree project by Yul Cho and Ifra Shariq, as part of the International Master’s Program in Curating, including Art, Management, and Law, with the support of Stockholm University. The cover design and illustrations are created by Muniza Shariq.

The Bookshop Situation Series at Index is based on events to present books, magazines, records and other artistic formats. The bookshop situation is a way to test content, to share it, to distribute it, offering situations to be part of a community of experimental producers and users.