Aga Wielocha
 Aga Wielocha, 2021. Photo Cesar Delgado Martin. | |
| Born | Warsaw, Poland |
|---|---|
Aga Wielocha is a researcher and collection care professional specialised in contemporary art.
She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the research project Activating Fluxus in the Institute Materiality in Art and Culture, Bern Academy of the Arts (BFH). Previously, she worked as a Conservator in M+ Museum of Visual Culture in Hong Kong, where she was designing documentation strategies to support efficient care of growing collections of visual art, design, architecture and moving image.
She holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam (2021). Her doctoral research, titled Collecting archives of objects and stories: On the lives and futures of contemporary art at the museum carried out within the program New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art (NACCA), situated at the crossroads of art history and theory, conservation, museology and heritage studies, was focused on the lives and futures of contemporary art in institutional collections, particularly on works which are variable and unfold over time.
Her general research interests lie in mechanisms and processes of institutional collecting with the focus on processual, contemporary art formats, such as art projects, participatory art and performance and she regularly lectures, gives presentations, and writes on this topic.
Prior to her doctorate studies, she served as a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland. She holds a Master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art from the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland. [1]
Talks, Lectures and Conference Papers
- Shaping Institutional Strategies for Collecting Media Art at M+ Hong Kong / New Media Museums Colloquium: Collecting and Preserving Media Arts, Olomouc, Czechia [2022]
- Evolving concepts of care and prevention for contemporary art collections in contemporary institutions. Online symposium Contemporary Art Conservation Revisited: 20 years later / Bern Academy of the Arts, Switzerland; [co-presented with Christel Pesme] [2022]
- What About Bob? Shaping Institutional Approaches through Research and Practice / Conference ‘Past/Present: Collecting, Exhibiting and Conserving Contemporary Art in Asia’, Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan [co-presented with D. Smith] [2022]
- Readymade of the digital epoch: the (im)possible futures of Shirley Tse’s Negotiated Differences. Symposium TechFocus IV: Caring for 3D-printed Art organised by AIC Electronic Media Group [co-presented with A. Guarascio and O. Chow][2021]
- In Search of Sustainable Care for Digital Art: Establishing Networks, Enhancing Collaboration and Shifting from Ownership to Commons. Contemporary Art/Electronic Media Joint Session of AIC 2021 Annual Meeting, panel co-presented with Annet Dekker and Marina Valle Noronha[2021]
- New Art and New Ways of Institutional Collecting: From Possession to Partnership / Contemporary Art and Electronic Media Joint Session of AIC 2021 Annual Meeting [2021]
- Collecting Archives of Objects and Stories: On the lives and futures of contemporary art at the museum / NICAS (The Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science) Colloquim Online [2021]
- A Fat, Juicy File of Web Art: Net Art in the Museum and New Ways of Collecting / MAPS 2020: THE DEAD WEB – THE END, Will the Internet end soon?, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary [2020]
Writings
- “Art Objects As Documents and the Distributed Identity of Contemporary Artworks.” ArtMatters International Journal of Technical Art History, no. Special Issue #1: 106–13, 2021
- "The Artist Interview as a Platform For Negotiating An Artwork’s Possible Futures", Art & Documentation, no 17, Gdansk 2018
- "Museum Collection in a Public Space", [in:] S. Sunara, A. Thorn (eds.) Conservation of Sculpture Parks, London 2018
- "El registro de los vínculos entre el museo y el artista y su impacto en el ámbito de la conservación y restauración", [in:] 18ª Jornada de Conservación de Arte Contemporáneo, postprints, Madrid 2017. (Spanish)
- "Preserving the Open Form. The Oskar and Zofia Hansen House in Szumin: Between architecture and contemporary art" [in:] Saving the Now, preprints of the International Committee of Conservation (IIC) 2016 Los Angeles Congress. Special issue of Studies in Conservation, Vol. 61 (2016). [co-autored with A. Kędziorek]
- "Between curator and the artist: a problem of authority", [in:] E. Hermens, F. Robertson (eds) Authenticity in transition. Changing practices in contemporary art making and conservation, London 2016
Organised symposia and research projects
- Collecting and Preserving Research-based and Archive-based Art Projects, online (M+ Museum Hong Kong), Feb-Apr 2022. Research project, and a series of six internal seminars for M+ Museum staff with invited guests (Cornelia Sollfrank, Claire Bishop, Patricia Falcao, Sarah Haylett, Martina Haidvogl, Aymeric Mansoux, Julie Boschat Thorez, Anna Schäffler) curated by Dušan Barok. In collaboration with David Smith.
