Curatorial
Practice
🌑 Ethereal Garden: Curatorial Research Network
Ethereal Garden Mission Statement
︎ Collaboration and Communal Healing
︎ Networked Curatorial Model
︎ Interdisciplinary Exchange
Ethereal Garden is a decentralized curatorial network inspired by the resilience of mycelium. It brings together diverse contributors through peer-driven exchange, countering the dominance of single narratives in curatorial practice and fostering belonging across disciplines, from art to technology and sociology.
Rooted in collaboration and decentralization, Ethereal Garden envisions curation as a living system in which each contribution is a node, interwoven with others in an evolving network. It embodies adaptability and resilience, positioning curation as a transformative framework for collective learning and communal healing, and affirming the sustaining power of interconnected experiences.
Kindly supported by the Canada Council for the Arts -Digital Greenhouse Strategic Innovation Fund.
︎ Networked Curatorial Model
︎ Interdisciplinary Exchange
Ethereal Garden is a decentralized curatorial network inspired by the resilience of mycelium. It brings together diverse contributors through peer-driven exchange, countering the dominance of single narratives in curatorial practice and fostering belonging across disciplines, from art to technology and sociology.
Rooted in collaboration and decentralization, Ethereal Garden envisions curation as a living system in which each contribution is a node, interwoven with others in an evolving network. It embodies adaptability and resilience, positioning curation as a transformative framework for collective learning and communal healing, and affirming the sustaining power of interconnected experiences.
Kindly supported by the Canada Council for the Arts -Digital Greenhouse Strategic Innovation Fund.
March 2023 / On-going
Haroon Mirza, Solstice Star, installation view, Lisson Gallery.
︎Physical Art × Digital Experience
︎ Communal Ritual
︎ Collective Resonance
︎ Communal Ritual
︎ Collective Resonance
Solstice Star Gif(t) is a hybrid model of physical installation and digital artwork infused with the healing frequency of 111 Hz. Blending Daoist philosophy with collective participation, the project embodies a curatorial healing journey, guiding audiences into resonance across spiritual, technological, and artistic frequencies to foster collective balance.
Distributed as part of the exhibition ||| at Lisson Gallery, Solstice Star is a gif(t) created by Haroon Mirza and initiated by Sha Li. In the physical space, it appears as a vinyl QR code on the wall; upon scanning, an augmented 3D sculpture is activated. Recontextualized on the blockchain, the work extends into digital space, where anyone can own the GIF version as an NFT. This enables the artist to track ownership, remain creatively engaged, and continuously evolve the work within an expanding network, while allowing collectors to become active participants in its unfolding.
Embedding Solstice Star with the healing frequency of 111 Hz, a central element of the exhibition, aims to inspire audiences to attune to their own frequency. Token holders may later contribute their frequency back into the work, transforming it into a co-created piece of collective resonance.
Led by Haroon Mirza and Sha Li, in collaboration with Greg Hilty (curatorial director and partner, Lisson Gallery), George Cunliffe (creative technologist), and colleagues at Lisson Gallery and Verse.
Distributed as part of the exhibition ||| at Lisson Gallery, Solstice Star is a gif(t) created by Haroon Mirza and initiated by Sha Li. In the physical space, it appears as a vinyl QR code on the wall; upon scanning, an augmented 3D sculpture is activated. Recontextualized on the blockchain, the work extends into digital space, where anyone can own the GIF version as an NFT. This enables the artist to track ownership, remain creatively engaged, and continuously evolve the work within an expanding network, while allowing collectors to become active participants in its unfolding.
Embedding Solstice Star with the healing frequency of 111 Hz, a central element of the exhibition, aims to inspire audiences to attune to their own frequency. Token holders may later contribute their frequency back into the work, transforming it into a co-created piece of collective resonance.
Led by Haroon Mirza and Sha Li, in collaboration with Greg Hilty (curatorial director and partner, Lisson Gallery), George Cunliffe (creative technologist), and colleagues at Lisson Gallery and Verse.
May 2021 / On-going
Pak, The Fungible Collection, part of the burn.art ecosystem in collaboration with the sotheby’s.
︎ Community Value Exchange System
︎ Social Experiment
︎ Creative Ecosystem
[burn.art] introduced an experimental “burn” mechanism using NFTs to explore alternative systems of value for digital art. Collectors of Pak’s NFTs, including works from The Fungible Collection launched by Sotheby’s, could permanently remove their works from circulation in exchange for “Ash,” a social currency created by the artist. The mechanism transformed destruction into a new form of value, asking: What holds greater worth—art or money?
Ash subsequently functioned as a digital currency for knowledge exchange and cross-sector collaboration, creating an experimental ecosystem in which value was generated through participation, circulation, and collective exchange. The curatorial framework examined how technological systems might redistribute value beyond conventional market transactions, turning destruction into regeneration and ownership into participation.
︎ Social Experiment
︎ Creative Ecosystem
[burn.art] introduced an experimental “burn” mechanism using NFTs to explore alternative systems of value for digital art. Collectors of Pak’s NFTs, including works from The Fungible Collection launched by Sotheby’s, could permanently remove their works from circulation in exchange for “Ash,” a social currency created by the artist. The mechanism transformed destruction into a new form of value, asking: What holds greater worth—art or money?
Ash subsequently functioned as a digital currency for knowledge exchange and cross-sector collaboration, creating an experimental ecosystem in which value was generated through participation, circulation, and collective exchange. The curatorial framework examined how technological systems might redistribute value beyond conventional market transactions, turning destruction into regeneration and ownership into participation.
June 16th, 2020 to June 21st, 2020
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, SETS AND SCENARIOS ACT II, Image List: Actions to Relate to Oneself and The World, 2020.
︎ Participatory and Interactivity
︎ New Modes of Encounter
︎ Online Public Programme
In recent years, media technologies have fundamentally transformed how we encounter, circulate, and experience moving images. As we become increasingly immersed in cycles of image production and consumption, images actively reshape our perceptions, subjectivities, and embodied experiences. At the same time, the boundaries between physical and digital, private and public, and individual and collective experience are becoming increasingly fluid.
Sets and Scenarios explored this cultural condition by examining how mediated images reshape our encounters with art, space, and one another. The program blurred Nottingham Contemporary’s public and private spaces through sculptural installations, sound, video, and live performance, inviting audiences to move through shifting atmospheric environments. It approached the encounter between artwork, viewer, space, and others as an ephemeral and contingent form of collective experience.
Reimagined digitally during the pandemic lockdown, the project extended this inquiry into online space, exploring how cultural experiences might be sustained and transformed as the conditions of collective encounter shift.
︎ New Modes of Encounter
︎ Online Public Programme
In recent years, media technologies have fundamentally transformed how we encounter, circulate, and experience moving images. As we become increasingly immersed in cycles of image production and consumption, images actively reshape our perceptions, subjectivities, and embodied experiences. At the same time, the boundaries between physical and digital, private and public, and individual and collective experience are becoming increasingly fluid.
Sets and Scenarios explored this cultural condition by examining how mediated images reshape our encounters with art, space, and one another. The program blurred Nottingham Contemporary’s public and private spaces through sculptural installations, sound, video, and live performance, inviting audiences to move through shifting atmospheric environments. It approached the encounter between artwork, viewer, space, and others as an ephemeral and contingent form of collective experience.
Reimagined digitally during the pandemic lockdown, the project extended this inquiry into online space, exploring how cultural experiences might be sustained and transformed as the conditions of collective encounter shift.
Feb 7th, 2020 to March 31st, 2020
Lu Shan, The Great Plague 2020, screenshot from the unfinished video animation
︎ Collective Memory
︎ Emotional Resonance
︎ Digital Archive
Post from the First Lockdown is an archive of artists' responses to the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the Hubei region, spanning from the 7th of February to the end of March 2020. Led by Gaia Fugazza, Luigi Galimberti, and Sha Li, the project served as a self-organized community blog post with the intention of igniting further discussions among the public and fostering community solidarity. Its main objective was to establish direct contact with artists in China who were creating art while under quarantine. We sought to listen to their voices in order to gain a better understanding of a story that had been narrated in numerous contradictory ways by various countries' media, with each accusing the other of cover-ups and propaganda.
Given that the artists personally witnessed the Covid-19 epidemic at a time when its origins and unprecedented impact on society were still unknown, this series of works has been organized chronologically in retrospect. Through the act of listening and recording lived experiences, curation becomes a practice of care, transforming individual trauma into shared memory and offering emotional grounding for the community.
In collaboration with the MA programme at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, led by Dr. Wenny Teo, the project invited her cohort to respond to each participating artist. In the following year, the project hosted an online public event at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, featuring updated artists' responses and reflections as part of the Frank Davis Memorial Lecture of 2021.
︎ Emotional Resonance
︎ Digital Archive
Post from the First Lockdown is an archive of artists' responses to the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the Hubei region, spanning from the 7th of February to the end of March 2020. Led by Gaia Fugazza, Luigi Galimberti, and Sha Li, the project served as a self-organized community blog post with the intention of igniting further discussions among the public and fostering community solidarity. Its main objective was to establish direct contact with artists in China who were creating art while under quarantine. We sought to listen to their voices in order to gain a better understanding of a story that had been narrated in numerous contradictory ways by various countries' media, with each accusing the other of cover-ups and propaganda.
Given that the artists personally witnessed the Covid-19 epidemic at a time when its origins and unprecedented impact on society were still unknown, this series of works has been organized chronologically in retrospect. Through the act of listening and recording lived experiences, curation becomes a practice of care, transforming individual trauma into shared memory and offering emotional grounding for the community.
In collaboration with the MA programme at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, led by Dr. Wenny Teo, the project invited her cohort to respond to each participating artist. In the following year, the project hosted an online public event at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, featuring updated artists' responses and reflections as part of the Frank Davis Memorial Lecture of 2021.