Eternal Transitory Protocol

Eternal Transitory Protocol is an ongoing artistic research initiative which started off by thinking and looking at storage infrastructures surrounding contemporary art collections. We aim to share case studies and analysis of the different ways collections are governed and taken care of; but most of all, we want to develop practical tools to trigger some real change for artists and collectors. And then keep thinking as we test those tools.

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The ETP departs from the idea that artworks within institutional collections may eventually enter what we describe as a state of “Institutional Coma”: a moment in which a work loses circulation and becomes indefinitely stored within climate- controlled infrastructures. Rather than understanding this state as a necessary endpoint, our protocol proposes an alternative to activate and embrace processes of transformation at that stage and before. Ultimately, we want to open up to other possibilities of care and life-after-being-exhibited to tailor each artworks best needs and will.

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Team: Layla Fassa, Ivan Murgic, Steven Haoge Gan, Francisco Almeida Cardoso, Natalia (Nika) Sorzano, Scarlett Yang, Anna Penalva Halpin and Andrea Munain.

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The research programme has been developed with the help of TBA21 and Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza, through the study programme Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies in collaboration with TBA21.