"Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections"

On a desk of the private study collection of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, an old stuffed parrot guards a small library and a vast, yet obsolete ornithology collection. An excited young scientist reads a story on the origins of the desiccated animal for the purpose of entertaining a group of visitors: it may have been the last “speaker” of a dead Indigenous language from colonial Venezuela, or a German prince’s precious gift to the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. There is no clear understanding which of these versions, if any, might be true.

Curated by David Ayala-Alfonso, Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections is a traveling exhibition that reflects on the birth of modern collections, the art institutions that sustain them, and their contingent origin stories to reveal a universe of erasures, violence, and fortuity. Considering how institutional collections organize our lives, Never Spoken Again brings together artists whose works open up a critique of material culture, iconography, and political ecologies.

Variously, the works make use of the language of the museum display and the ethnographical video to uncover stories of colonial exploitation, myths, fake currencies, war games, and the slow violence of systematic racism that historically underpin collecting practices. These practices examine not only the collected objects and the systems of distribution that facilitate their circulation, but also the disciplines and subjects of study that they trade in. Together they open the field for considering our agency in how our histories and futures may be constituted otherwise.

The exhibition tour has been organized by Independent Curators International (ICI).

Artists: Morehshin Allahyari, Maria Thereza Alves, François Bucher, Giuseppe Campuzano, Alia Farid, Sofia de Grenade, Laura Huertas Millán, Ulrik López, Carlos Motta, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Erkan Öznur, David Peña Lopera, Claudia Peña Salinas, Michael Rakowitz, Reyes Santiago Rojas, Daniel R. Small, and Felipe Steinberg

Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections is a traveling exhibition curated by David Ayala-Alfonso and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). It is the result of a new series of programs, pioneered with the support of the Hartfield Foundation, aimed at providing opportunities to alumni of ICI’s Curatorial Intensive as they move through the stages of their career, and reflecting ICI’s commitment to fostering and championing new curatorial voices who will shape the future of the field. Never Spoken Again is made possible with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum, with additional support from SAHA. Crozier Fine Arts is the Preferred Art Logistics Partner.