Pidginization as Curatorial Method: Messing with Languages and Praxes

A new vision for activist curatorial practice.

In Pidginization as Curatorial Method: Messing with Languages and Praxes, renowned curator and director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung proposes Pidgin languages as expressions of resistance to settler colonialism and pidginization as a way to approach curating (and the world), creating new spaces for encounter, knowledge, and pluralities. Deftly deploying the thinking, writing, and rhythmic beat of musicians, philosophers, linguists, poets, and novelists, Ndikung offers a new vision for activist curatorial practice and beyond. This is the third volume of the series Thoughts on Curating, edited by Steven Henry Madoff.

Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (born in 1977 in Yaoundé, Cameroon) is the founder and artistic director of SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, the artistic director of Sonsbeek20-24, a quadrennial contemporary art exhibition in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and professor in the Spatial Strategies MA program at the Weissensee Academy of Art in Berlin. From 2023, Ndikung will become the director of Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin.

Steven Henry Madoff, an award-winning writer, editor, and poet, has written extensively on contemporary art for such publications as Artforum, the New York Times, and Time magazine, and published numerous monographs on leading artists. He is Senior Critic at Yale University’s School of Art.