Dissertation Defense | Curating Otherwise: Queer Intersectional Practices in Contemporary Art Institutions – Liang-Kai Yu

Dissertation Defense | Curating Otherwise: Queer Intersectional Practices in Contemporary Art Institutions – Liang-Kai Yu
Defense Date: 27 June 2025
Time: 9:45
Location: Maastricht University
Livestream link: https://youtube.com/@UMphddefense
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Eliza Steinbock, Dr. Vivian van Saaze, Dr. Ir. Dirk van den Heuvel

What happens when queer and trans voices are invited into the museum—but only on limited terms? This dissertation explores how curators, artists, and cultural workers—particularly queer and trans people of colour—navigate, resist, and transform institutional frameworks through what I term queer intersectional curatorial practices. Through case studies such as In a Different Light (1995), Art AIDS America (2015–17), Queer British Art (2017), the Van Abbemuseum’s sensory interventions, and Documenta 15 (2022), it examines how artists like Kia LaBeija and Travis Alabanza, alongside collectives such as Party Office, disrupt and reconfigure the limited terms of institutional inclusion. In this context, I propose curating otherwise as a critical framework—not as an act of adding diversity, but as a deeper intervention into the structures that govern access, legitimacy, and participation.