The MOMENTUM CURATORIAL PROGRAM (MCP) is an experimental and collaborative platform for artists, curators, art mediators, and cultural producers who seek to embed curatorial strategies into their broader cultural and artistic practices.
With a strong focus on non-institutional frameworks and public space as exhibition sites, the program fosters new and sustainable ways of engaging with public culture and socio-cultural transformation, particularly in African and Arab contexts. It supports practices that are attentive to place, responsive to local communities, and conscious of historical and political narratives, while actively challenging dominant structures and canons in the art world.
MCP approaches contemporary art as a tool for cultural inquiry, community building, and public discourse. It emphasizes art-in-context projects that allow art to occur beyond institutional walls and within the everyday dynamics of environments. Developed and directed by Bettina Pelz and Aymen Gharbi, who have been curatorial partners since 2015 and are known for their pioneering projects, INTERFERENCE in Tunis and SEE DJERBA in Houmt Souk. MCP is rooted in the conviction that curating is a situated, socially engaged, and research-driven practice that responds to the complexities of contemporary art and public life.
A core feature of the program is its commitment to light- and media-based artistic approaches, embracing the possibilities of digital performance, shifting technological landscapes, and contemporary visual languages. The digital shift is seen not just as a medium, but as a critical context through which curatorial and artistic practices can evolve. Through critical discourse, cooperative working methods, and the cultivation of situated knowledge, MCP positions itself at the intersection of cultural innovation and social relevance. Publishing plays a central role in the program, not only as a form of dissemination but as a reflective process embedded in curatorial research and dialogue.
MCP is organized around a flexible, modular structure that allows participants to build their learning trajectories across 2025 and 2026. The program includes plenums, workshops, and collective practice projects, offering a hybrid constellation of online and on-site formats. Content modules are available in areas such as curation, production, mediation, communication, publishing, documentation, and dissemination. This framework supports a process-oriented engagement with curatorial thinking and action that adapts to the pace and focus of each fellow.
To provide meaningful guidance and support, fellows are accompanied by experienced and emerging curators, including Fairouz Nouri and Khadouja Tamzini, both of whom have been active members of the INTERFERENCE Curatorial Collective since 2021. This mentorship component fosters professional exchange and peer learning, grounding fellows in real-world curatorial practices and networks.
The program also includes regular theoretical engagements through roundtables, guest lectures, and reading groups. These sessions offer space for critical reflection and exploration of curatorial discourse, with themes such as the ethics of public engagement, socially responsive practice, art histories from the Global South, decolonial and postcolonial curating, and institutional critique.
In addition to conceptual and artistic development, MCP supports professional growth through a series of practice-oriented modules. These include skills in curatorial writing and speaking, mediating public art, moderating events, and managing the practical aspects of production, such as fundraising, budgeting, and grant writing, as well as the use of AI tools. Fellows also explore communication and media practices, including introductions to graphic design, writing for the press, social media, working with images and videos, photo and video documentation, web-based archiving, and alternative publishing formats such as podcasts and zines.
Each fellow is supported in producing a public outcome that reflects their research and curatorial focus. These outcomes may take the form of an exhibition, a publication, a performance or intervention, or a digital platform or community event. The program culminates in a public MCP Showcase where fellows share their projects, insights, and curatorial processes with a broader audience and professional network.
MCP offers a flexible, context-sensitive, and forward-looking curatorial training. It invites cultural practitioners to think critically, collaboratively, and creatively and act curatorial within the dynamic intersections of contemporary art, public culture, and social change.
2025 — 2026 INDIVIDUAL BUILDING BLOCKS
MOMENTUM RESIDENCY Research & Production
MOMENTUM TAKE OVER Publishing
MOMENTUM PANEL Discourse
2025 — 2026 MCP PRACTICE FIELDS
MEDINA DE LUMIÈRE Tunis — The Ramadan Festival of Light
Micro-Curating & Art Mediation
SEE DJERBA Houmt Souk — International Media Art Project
Micro-Curating & Documentation
INTERFERENCE Tunis —International Light Art Project
Micro-Curating & Public Panel
MCP DIRECTORS
MCP PARTICIPANTS
