The Model Citizen

BACKGROUND: This was a curatorial project Verhagen undertook with Professor Sean Redmond (Deakin). They selected, managed and oversaw the installation of seventeen artist/academic works as well as a number of innovative approaches to dressing the space and disseminating information. The Model Citizen was orientated around two intersecting points: how modelling enables artists to reshape and remake the world; and how citizenship is itself crafted out of forms of selfhood and belonging that are represented to be ideal or exemplary. In modelling citizenship, each of the artists modelled their art and their understanding of citizenship through a conscious play with scale and size, stillness and movement, sound and silence. Making the exhibition embodied Lind’s assertion of curator’s “performative sides, ones that seek to challenge the status quo”. (2012) CONTRIBUTION: This was an important exploration of social inclusion and the question of belonging. The exhibition contributed to debates about contemporary citizenship whilst also considering how through the very act of modelling, creative processes become social practices. Beyond these key themes, decisions in the exhibition actively challenged many traditions about delineations between art and design, where specific design elements deliberately blurred boundaries between dressing the space and art. Other points where more controversial, where “artists” accredited were actually government bodies who provided the data which went into the display, opening up questions about ownership and information. SIGNIFICANCE: This was a major exhibition presented at RMIT gallery. The series of seven public events included a symposium with visiting academic Professor Karen Barad as Respondent. The season had an attendance of 3,267 people, with an education group attendance of 269. Public engagement could be ascertained through: 15,339 RMIT Gallery Facebook reach; 815 views of The Model Citizen through rmitgallery.com; and 10,800 Twitter impressions.