Jacqueline Schwartz

Curating Contemporary Art (MA)

Photo of the outside of the degree show installation. Chorus of Contact explores the complexity of our ‘contact zones’ - the moments of encounter where cultures converge and collide. Responding to London as an urban contact zone, this project navigates the layers of cultural exchange, incessant industrialisation, and societal transformation that are symptomatic of an ever-expanding, transnational condition. Through sound recordings and graphic scores, artist Pheobe riley Law situates the concept of the contact zone in Canary Wharf - a site symbolic of historical and contemporary intercultural encounter. Phoebe’s recordings are amplified within an experiential installation developed in collaboration with artist Abbas Zahedi. A layered soundscape encourages audiences to listen collectively, whilst construction hoardings and bill posters evoke the eeriness of transitory space. The work encourages alternative ways of navigating contact zones through sound, acknowledging both the harmonies and dissonances in our relational environments. Engaging with Édouard Glissant’s concept of the Archipelago, this project identifies with his poetic yet tangible definition as ‘spaces of relation where difference and interdependence coexist.’ Through this analytical framework, difference is acknowledged, established and, at times, left untranslated. Our curatorial methodology integrates opacities and unknowns as a means of building a counter-hegemonic practice - learning to accommodate the fluctuations and idiosyncrasies of our transnational world.

Here, artists Pheobe riley Law and Abbas Zahedi are pictured testing out the spatialized audio in the display space early in the installation period. Chorus of Contact was a commission project that brought Law and Zahedi together to collaborate on a new site-specific sound piece that responded to the concept of the Contact Zone in London.

Chorus of Contact is best experienced up close. Utilizing transducer speakers, the audio work reverberates directly through the metal hoardings, allowing audience members to both hear and feel the sounds very intensely in the space. To accompany the sound work, Pheobe riley Law also created a series of instructions that encourage people to bring the act of deep listening outside of the installation space and into their daily lives. Here is one such instruction: Listen out for snippets of conversations Interpret what you have overheard as a direction if it makes sense to do so. For example if someone says go “right ok”, go right. If you hear no words, walk somewhere you consider to be still, or if you only hear the sound of traffic, walk in a noisy tempo, matching the intensity. Here are up conversation snippets from Pheobe’s sound walk at Deptford docks that she then wrote into a poem: "Before rush hour myself Open up Ok Listen till 15 mins Then we hang have a call ha ha ha". As Pheobe writes, this text is a prompt for walking. It is open to interpretation. Each score is a collaboration between the artist, you (the viewer), and the environment. Learn more about the project at https://chorusofcontact.cargo.site/ .

About

Jacqueline Schwartz is a London-based curator and researcher whose current work at the Royal College of Art explores the power of public programming in cultural institutions. She holds a degree in Museum Studies and History, graduating Summa Cum Laude from UCSB in June 2022, and a Master’s in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art.

Jacqueline has worked in collaboration with many arts-based organisations, including roles at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Olympia Auctions, Gazelli Art House, Hoxton Radio, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. She also co-founded Entheoscope Magazine, serving as Chief Content Curator, and has extensive experience in public programming in a wide range of cultural spaces.

In her practice, Jacqueline embraces diverse roles beyond “curator,” including researcher, artist, host, and mediator, adapting these titles to better serve each project’s needs. Combining her interest in experimental methodologies and academic background in anticolonial museum theory, Jacqueline critically engages with the extractive nature of Western cultural institutions and seeks to bridge the gap between academia and practical discourse.

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