Student-led exhibition project: “Luminarium”

The “Luminarium” exhibition project, developed by the current MA Contemporary Curating student Jennifer Sandoval based on her curatorial activism approach, challenges the notion of neutrality and questions the concept of objectivity through a curated selection of black-and-white artworks.

Private View: 28th April 2026

Venue: SAAN1

By presenting artworks in black and white, Luminarium does not seek to erase cultural or historical specificity, but rather to expose how aesthetic conventions influence perception. The supposed neutrality of black and white is itself a constructed bias; one that can obscure context while simultaneously lending works an illusion of objectivity or permanence. In this sense, the exhibition positions neutrality not as an absence of meaning, but as an active and influential curatorial condition.

Using the theoretical groundwork established in “Behind the White Wall: Curating the Curator”, which challenges the myth of curatorial neutrality and its societal implications, I extended this inquiry into exhibition practice. Moving beyond the level of theory, I tested these ideas through the development and installation of Luminarium as a physical exhibition. This allowed me to examine the conditions of neutrality within a gallery setting, positioning the exhibition not simply as an outcome, but as a method of research through which curatorial decisions could be observed and analysed in real time. 

Join us in exploring the complex dynamics between art, the viewer, and interpretation, and let’s ask this question: Can objectivity truly exist, or is it a form of control?