Project Anywhere (2012–2023) operated simultaneously as an expanded exhibition platform, conceptual work and novel artistic research model. Conceived as an exhibition space comprising the entire globe, its very form challenged the institutional infrastructures through which art is ordinarily validated and disseminated. At its core was an experiment in replacing curatorial authority with the rigour of a double-blind peer review process through which every submission was evaluated by four international artist-academics and then ranked by an international editorial committee. Across ten years, Project Anywhere hosted 103 individual projects sited outside conventional exhibition environments, from remote geographies to digital and conceptual terrains. Yet its true significance resides less in the sum of these projects than in the performative architecture that held them: a decentralised system in which peer review became both a curatorial and artistic medium. In a partnership with Parsons School of Design (The New School) and the Centre of Visual Art (University of Melbourne), Project Anywhere redefined dissemination as research, creating a precedent for exhibition-as-publication and art-as-peer-reviewed-knowledge. It stands as both a body of supported practices and a durational artistic archive that radically rethought where and how art might occur.<p></p>
NTRO Output Type
- Curated Exhibition, Event or Festival
NTRO Output Category
- Curated Exhibition, Event or Festival : Web-based exhibition work
Place
MelbourneVenue
OnlineNTRO Publisher
Project AnywhereStart Date
2012-01-01End Date
2023-11-01Medium
Global expanded exhibition programResearch Statement
Project Anywhere (2012–2023) was conceived as both platform and conceptual work: a distributed exhibition space reliant upon double-blind peer review rather than curatorial gatekeeping. As Founder and Executive Director, I staged a decade-long collaborative experiment in rethinking the conditions under which art might be validated, contextualised and shared globally.
Project Anywhere’s contribution lay in transforming peer review into an artistic and curatorial medium. By subjecting proposals to four independent international reviews and editorial ranking, the platform enacted a critical displacement of authority, producing an ecology where artistic research could circulate without institutional borders. Supporting 103 projects across diverse geographies and modalities, it fostered a polycentric community of practice. Beyond mere facilitation, Project Anywhere was itself an intervention into the politics of visibility, validation and the architectures of artistic knowledge.
The significance of Project Anywhere rests in its proposition that the structures through which art is disseminated are inseparable from art itself. Its decade-long operation, in partnership with Parsons School of Design (The New School) and the Centre of Visual Art (University of Melbourne), created a precedent for an “exhibition-as-publication” model in which peer review performs as an (anti)curatorial act. By offering validation, visibility and community for practices outside traditional systems, it destabilised hierarchies and reframed the exhibition as a site of research rather than display. Project Anywhere extended the conceptual boundaries of artistic research, foregrounding process over product, decentralisation over singular authority, and multiplicity over institutional centralisation.Size or Duration of Work
Ten years (plus one year development and archiving)Affiliation
Sean Lowry, University of Melbourne
