How can we curate today taking into account the plurality of voices? What exhibitionary formats are needed in order to address the complexities of planetary contexts? What does it mean to curate “globally” today?

The proliferation of large-scale perennial exhibitions since the end of the Cold War has expanded visibility for artists and curators from historically “peripheral” regions, offering platforms for experimentation, curatorial innovation, critical discourse, and knowledge production. Yet these formats are also products of globalization, closely tied to the circulation of neoliberal capital, the reinforcement of geopolitical hierarchies, and the embedding of artistic production within global commerce, tourism, and cultural soft power. Today, amid rising geopolitical tensions and the resurgence of nationalist and populist agendas, these contradictions are increasingly visible: controversies surrounding documenta fifteen (2022), campaigns by the Art Not Genocide Alliance against Israel’s participation at the Venice Biennale, and widespread criticism over the reopening of the Russian Pavilion in 2026 outline the growing disjunction between internationalized curatorial agendas and national politics. Such tensions indicate that the global exhibition format is reaching a critical juncture, underscoring the need for alternative exhibitionary structures and curatorial methodologies responsive to current planetary realities.

This panel examines how curatorial practice can be rearticulated through decolonial, relational and transcultural frameworks that challenge the persistence of Eurocentric exhibition models. Drawing on the thought of Gerardo Mosquera, Édouard Glissant, and Achille Mbembe, the discussion foregrounds curating as a practice shaped by multiplicity, relation, opacity and epistemic plurality. In response to what Terry Smith describes as the layered and heterogeneous condition of contemporaneity, the conversation asks how exhibition-making can move beyond universalizing narratives toward more situated, relational, and accountable modes of engagement.

Focusing on alternative exhibitionary formats, and artistic mediums such as sound, movement, dance, theatre, performance, storytelling, and participatory practices, the conversation highlights decentralized, anti-hegemonic and research-driven structures that operate as spaces of epistemic exchange rather than sites of mere representation. These include pluriennials, collaborative platforms, and transregional initiatives that foreground collective knowledge production, historical accountability, and non-extractive forms of internationalism. By engaging transcultural perspectives and non-Western epistemologies, the panel addresses the politics of visibility and the risks of tokenism, proposing instead curatorial methodologies grounded in conviviality, and radical imagination.