Ken Paranada

Simon Stephens, the head of publications and events at the Museums Association, meets Ken Paranada, the curator of art and climate change at the Sainsbury Centre.

Ken, who is also a researcher and writer, was born in the Philippines and is now based in the UK. Before joining the Sainsbury Centre, Ken held curatorial positions with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Cultural Centre of the Philippines, London Design Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, and many other globally renowned institutions.

Ken tells Simon about creating exhibitions, using museums to enact social change, the idea of living art, decolonisation, the changing role of the curator and how art can help communities respond and adapt to the climate crisis.

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Music: The Right Direction © 2020 by Shane Ivers, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Transcript

Simon Stephens I'm Simon Stephens, the Head of Publications and Events at the Museums Association. We are a campaigning and values led organisation that has been exploring what radical practice and activism means for museums for a number of years now. Our current campaigns include decolonisation, anti racism, climate justice and wellbeing.

I'm here in Norwich to interview Ken Paranada, who is the creator of art and climate change at the Sainsbury Centre. It's for our Radical Museums podcast. Ken, who is also a researcher and writer, was born in the Philippines and is now based in the UK. He's the first curator of art and climate change at the Sainsbury Centre, which is part of the University of East Anglia.

Before joining the Sainsbury Centre, Ken held curatorial positions with the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Cultural Centre of Philippines, London Design Biennale, the Shanghai Biennale, and many other globally renowned [00:01:00] institutions. Let's go and meet him. Welcome to the Radical Museums podcast.

Welcome, Ken. Thanks very much for joining us. 

Ken Paranada Hi, Simon. Thanks for the invitation. Glad to be here. 

Simon Stephens So if we could kick off, Ken, just if you could talk a bit about yourself and your role at the Sainsbury Centre here. And you were appointed reasonably recently, but it's a fantastic role you've got. Very interesting. So it would be great if you could tell our listeners a bit about what you do. 

Ken Paranada Definitely. So my role as curator of art and climate change covers many different facets, such as conducting artist visits, research and preparing exhibitions. I think you asked what is like the most enjoyable thing about the role.

Simon Stephens Yeah, it'd be interesting to hear about what you find most enjoyable about your role. 

Ken Paranada Well, for me, the most enjoyable and unique part of the role is to conceptualize exhibitions that offer both warnings and hope to people and to articulate the complexity of The climate crisis with a focus on, uh, creating resilience and the possibility of change and truly reckoning what the climate crisis entails.

but to talk a bit about myself, I'm originally from the Philippines. and I studied museum studies and postcolonial histories, and I ended up focusing on, philosophy of nature via studying in Paris with Bruno Latour. And then I ended up studying in Switzerland, where I focused on curating social sculptures.

after that, I ended up. In London, studying at Goldsmiths, and I focused on art in the Anthropocene. the Sainsbury Centre is part of the University of East Anglia, as you mentioned in your introduction, and the role of the Curator of Art and [00:03:00] Climate Change involves collaborating closely with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to think of ways to activate, their scientific findings and try to translate it into an experience that is in the realm of art, in the realm of performances, in the realm of different activations. In other words, it's about making the language of climate change more digestible, easier to understand for people to, to reckon what, what it means and how we play in, the larger ecosystem of, uh, you know, climate destruction and finding ways basically to address that and galvanize the public to respond to the threats of climate change and build that resilience because there is hope.

I guess that's how I'll introduce myself. 

Simon Stephens That's perfect, Ken. That was really interesting. Your role is actually a new role, isn't  it? A newly created role, uh, which is interesting in itself. What did, when you were being sort of, uh, appointed to the job, what did they tell you about the reasons for creating this role?

Ken Paranada Well, uh, when I was discussing with Art Director Jago and, uh, our Chief Curator Tanya and our Head of Collections, Calvin Winner, it's basically part of this radical look back to the history of the Sainsbury Center, which was established back in the 1978 and it's from that founding ethos of radicality of making museums. a place to nurture and foster discourse and to enact social change. And, and so for me, that was the kind of brief in terms of, uh, the job. And that for me, that was really exciting because it's again, trying to experiment with how museums can be a site for different perspective to Come together and discuss how we might form new ways of understanding our ecosystems, nature, our culture, ourselves, and to create possibilities to create a renewed understanding that art are living entities.

And that they have the power to basically unlock something in our psyches and to confront us with meaningful questions for humanity's basically, you know, survival in the future, because again, climate change is real and we recognize that. 

Simon Stephens That's really interesting, Ken. And so there's been some big changes here, haven't there, in the way that, uh, this idea of living art and the way that, you know, audiences interact with the art.

Can you say a little bit about that and how your role sits within that, that changes in terms of, uh, the audiences here? 

Ken Paranada So, the strategy we aim for in trying to activate art or removing it from its, you know, art being encased. In all of this glass box and the audience is only allowed to see it. So Jago's vision is to acknowledge that art is actually, you know, they are living entities and they have the, the life source and, the mana or that notion of, energy, that idea of aura.

So, it has that power to make us feel something in an emotional way, but also in an intellectual way. So, this strategy is basically to take an alternative approach in, uh, discussing the often bleak and destructive nature of climate change, but rather focus on building resilience, using objects to, to teach us about certain ideas that has been forgotten in this.

It pertains to Indigenous practices and our collection at the St. Severus Centre is very international. It has artifacts all across the globe. It's not as encyclopedic as the British Musebut we are trying to activate all of these stories to ground it in that sort of perspective of how museums can address one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, which is trying to end climate change or probably trying to solve it, trying to adapt with it, trying to mitigate it.

I don't know if that answered your question. 

Simon Stephens That does Ken, that's really, yeah, it's fascinating. It'd be good to explore what role you feel sort of art can play in, in helping communities respond and adapt to the climate crisis, which is obviously, uh, you know, the key challenge for the, for humanity at this time.

Ken Paranada So it's such an important issue. Definitely. And I think in terms of galvanizing communities, the power of the museum is to or the challenge of the museum is to make them create those partnerships with with communities and addressing climate change, because we need to recognize lived experience as as knowledge and because all of this people that has been experiencing climate change, you know, 20 years Ago, or kind of like when all of these things were being debated, they need to be part of the conversation.

They need to be part of, how we create this dialogues and how we form semiosis between objects, stories, artworks, scientific facts, specimens. And in trying to create that resilience in trying to create that strategy in preparing for this critical decade of immediate transition to greener forms of energy and obviously that there will be some adjustment period to that and there will be a lot of resistance from people because again, we're trying to disrupt the daily life and they think art has that power to to make it Easier to, to, uh, to kind of, uh, ease us into making, uh, that change possible.

Because again, it's a collective process. It's not just an individual that can solve climate change. We need to be part of it. And governments needs to be part of it. And policymaking is part of that. So would also be good to look at how to sort of balance hope and promoting the possibility of change while also communicating with the audience is the kind of the threat of the climate crisis poses.

Simon Stephens I guess that is quite difficult balance to achieve. How do you how do you go about doing that? 

Ken Paranada A very interesting question, Simon, I mean the context for discussions on balance and ecologies is often tricky and looked into highly polarized positions, you know, because, the discussion is basically should we loot the planet to save ourselves, you know, in terms of our adaptation to greener forms of technology, we will need to excavate more from the planet.

That means getting, uh, more lithium or iron and steel and copper and lithium to produce batteries or create structures that creates more renewable forms of energy. But the discussion I think is quite polarizing in a way that we don't look at it from this middle ground. There should be a middle ground where we can discuss traditional environmentalism that tries to preserve and mitigate the problems of climate change and, Balance that out with ideas of how technology could, play a part in the solution.

So I think we can't dismiss the fact that we need to build and this is going to be, uh, I guess the debate, what type of technologies are we going to be building together? To ensure the transition to happen so we wean ourselves off from using fossil fuel as a form of energy production. And so I think the climate crisis is a very complex topic.

And balancing that idea of hope, resilience, but then also being a frank and factual that, uh, we really need to change a lot of things for the not that, that idea of net zero, uh, world. To happen and we need to have this urgent conversations now and yes, interesting idea about being you mentioned being frank and factual as well One of the challenges with with communicating climate change is there is sort of misinformation that seems to be Associated with it.

Is that something you think about in your your work as well and do they're sort of getting to the truth of the situation Yes, obviously, what we try to aim for is to be factual and to be academic, but also we want to include live experiences and experimental ways to address climate change, eco anxiety, and all of the very complex kinds of, you know, things that is related to the topic.

And so we think about that, uh, or probably. I guess in my curation of the exhibitions that pertains to climate change at the Sainsbury Centre, I try to always make it diverse in its position, because for me, what curating means is a gathering of stories through different forms of storytelling, and this often involves objects, this often involves, you know, visualisation, visualisation, visualisation, visualisation, visualisation.

Artworks, visual art, experiences, sound, diverse media to, again, activate something inside of us and for, for us to reflect on, the biggest questions that the world is facing, war, famine, climate change, surveillance. Democracy at stake, all of these things play a role in and trying to open up the meaning of climate change and because it is interrelated to a lot of the things that is happening in the world, the current or the recent, uh, forest fires in Canada, was felt in the city of New York, and this tells us that climate change is very transborder.

It's very interconnected with different geopolitical affairs around the globe. 

Simon Stephens Thanks, Ken. And you mentioned, you touched on sort of curatorial stuff there. And we mentioned at the start that your role is a new role. So, and I think we all know that the role of curators is evolving. So what does the word curator mean to you? And how do you see the role of the curator changing? 

Ken Paranada Uh, that's such a interesting question, especially kind of, nowadays that a lot of people are, you know, curators or, it has been democratized and the idea of curating has extended into social media, Amazon gift baskets, you know, all of this amazing, uh, tweets or social media accounts are curated.

So I think, to just look into the history of the term curator, it is derived from Latin, and it usually I mean, the word means cura, or to care. And so I think that sort of idea of curator has now been democratized, and I'm for it. But There are certain kinds of, uh, kinds of practice of curating that is quite distinct from each other.

For example, museum curation is quite different from, uh, an art gallery kind of curator because the remit is different for a museum. There's a collection that needs to be. conserved, uh, interpreted and activated in an art gallery situation or in a kunsthalle format. Usually there is no, uh, collection and it's more, for presentation or exhibition of amazing, projects or amazing artworks.

And usually this is like very experimental. So, in that sort of idea, we could also look into the idea of the curator from the 15th century understanding of it, which was tasked with organizing and interpreting objects to create a site of wonder and knowledge. And then obviously this has evolved, as contemporary curators, uh, are not.

limited to museums and art galleries, but rather can also be found everywhere from libraries, aquaria, archives, botanical gardens, and online platforms and tech companies. But for me, the changing role and democratization of the word curator entails the preservation and promotion of both cultural heritage sites and new systems of thinking.

And this is why I'm for the democratization. The democratization of curating or the term curator, because it promotes this new way of thinking. It coalesces different disciplines together. Science, archaeology, literature into something we probably seen before, but we have a renewed understanding. There's that nuanced kind of like idea that climate change.is very complex and we can't just address it from one perspective. It can't just be science. It needs to come from different disciplines. And the more we, we break the meaning of climate change, the more it becomes digestible. And the more we, we prepare for how we can address it and how we could galvanize the public to different exhibitions to activate their emotions and to activate their ways of imagining the future. 

Simon Stephens And one of the things we're talking about when we're having a coffee earlier, uh, kind of related to creation was, uh, sort of, uh, decolonization, uh, and how do you see that? Does that have an impact on your work? Uh, you mentioned, you mentioned a conference in, in New York as well, where the, you know, decolonization was discussed. Is that an important lens to, to see your work? 

Ken Paranada Yes, I think it's very vital to decolonize our ways of thinking about art, about material culture, about art histories, especially responding to this notion of equity and addressing, uh, the misgivings of, you know, Institutional museums who collected predominantly white male European artists, I think we need to start integrating all of the voices left out of modernity, and we do that through decolonizing the museand this means diversifying the voices is.

Diversifying the visual language and aesthetics that we encounter inside museum spaces. And it's very vital as well to make sure that we are creating a future for all and not just for the ones that You know, has already been represented in the canons of art. So I think the future needs to be diverse and the future needs to address all of this kinds of inequalities that, the birth of the museum kind of created. And it very much is right to what you talked about earlier as well, doesn't it? About decolonization, about democratizing museums as well. It's all part of that, uh, that journey to, to make, you know, museums more inclusive and diverse, as you were saying. And, obviously this podcast is called the Radical Museums Podcast.

Simon Stephens So, what does, what does radical museum work mean to you, uh, Ken? 

Ken Paranada That's such an amazing question, Simon. so for me, radical museum work challenges to the traditional roles and practices of museums calling for transformation that is responsive, inclusive, and socially engaged by deconstructing power dynamics.

Decolonizing collections and fostering inclusivity and accessibility. Museums can evolve into dynamic institutions that actively contribute to social change. Embracing, uh, embracing radical museum work for me allows us to re imagine museums as spaces that not only honor the past, but actively shape a more equitable future for all.

As the world continues to change and evolve. So to must. our museums adapting to become relevant and resilient to all of the challenges that the upheavals of the world kind of like, uh, brings upon us. So I think museums need to be relevant and reflective of the diverse societies that they serve. 

Simon Stephens And you mentioned sort of the global nature of museum as well. And that kind of history as well. I guess, obviously, it almost goes without saying that the climate crisis is a global issue that faces us. So, I'm sort of interested to ask about the kind of networks that are important to you as a curator. Obviously, you've got this relationship with, you know, part of the Tyndall Center, but what kind of networks do you use in your work?

Ken Paranada So, uh, networks are quite vital in my role as a curator. Art and climate change as we aim to forge links or the Sainsbury Centre and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research aims to forge links with other art institutions and scientific institutions to, again, just basically pool what we know and, uh, Try to create exhibitions and programs that directly addresses certain ways of adaptation.

So, in our collaboration with the Tyndall Center, for example, we will be integrating certain ways to adapt to the climate crisis. For example, taking public transportation, simple gestures to actually limit our carbon emission and not in a very fundamentalist way. We're not trying to proselytize people.

We're again trying to heighten ecological awareness. And I think this is why networks are important and quite vital in the role because we need several different experts to tell us how they, Done it or have they conducted it in their practice? And, uh, we listen to all of those things and try to integrate what they've learned, best practices into trying to create a program of exhibitions that are relevant and meaningful.

And we're not just like greenwashing. We're also trying to lead by example, by trying to be ecological in our exhibitions. So we're trying to make sure that there is zero waste as possible. Obviously, sometimes it's hard, but we're using renewable, materials. We're, we're, we're starting to think of veering away from using plastic as vinyl, uh, for the exhibition where we're thinking like maybe just paper, something organic.

So, it's this kinds of things. We're also thinking about our ecological footprint via shipping artwork. We're now trying to, you know, look at it from the perspective of local first in terms of like, okay, in terms of like carbon footprint, it's better if we get the artworks locally. And if we can't do it locally, then we. ask several museums abroad to probably loan us an exhibition copy that we could reprint in the museum. So rather than them sending, for example, a photograph of Paolo Nazareth's amazing work in 2011 to the musewe're just going to reprint it in house to make sure that, you know, we're, we're conscious about our carbon footprint and that types of gesture.

Simon Stephens That's really fascinating. Ken, I'm sure museums all over the world are asking themselves similar questions, uh, to do with their carbon footprint and what they can do to address that. Is there kind of sort of an ethical dimension to that as well though? Are there sort of ethical decisions you have to take in terms of, uh, reducing your impact on the environment?

Ken Paranada I mean, obviously sponsorship is a very live issue in the museum sector. Yes, definitely. I think it's a big discussion right now, especially in terms of making sure that, we're conscious of the repercussions of getting certain funding from, uh, certain institutions or certain companies. Right? and so I think there, there is an ethical consideration that needs to be discussed in terms of just making sure that all our funding are clean, but sometimes that's debatable because like, oh, it's so messed up in terms of, the arts funding is quite limited, you know, and we can't rely solely on the Arts Council funding and that's why we need to look into other streams of getting some funding to make sure our shows or program at the Sainsbury Centre is as dynamic and as relevant and, you know, powerful to audiences because again, it requires budget to produce an exhibition and at least at the Sainsbury Centre. We don't have any problems with getting money from big polluters. At least not right now and hopefully not in the future, but we never know, Simon. 

Simon Stephens And, also I was kind of really interested in, uh, we talked about networks earlier, but also are there any kind of individuals who either now or in your career have really inspired you in your work, uh, that you still look to and think about as inspirations?

Well, uh, in terms of inspiration, I have loads of different inspirations, like from James Lovelock. To Donna Haraway, to Anand Singh, and all these amazing tinkers and theorists. But right now I take inspiration from art director, Dr. Jago Cooper, and his radical vision of recognizing art as living entities.

because the radical ambition has this potential to create museums that are dynamic, that are integrated, that are open and agile. And so for me, that's so inspiring and because it could create, you know, a potential heritage site or a museum site or a cultural site that that could respond to the different kinds of like fluctuations or upheavals of to events around the globe.

And, Jago is such a, such an inspiring figure because he was like telling us that object needs to be recognized as, as something that, that still has that power to activate a lot of different ideas and knowledge that humanity. Holds already, but probably we've lost and forgotten. It's like the power of art to remind us things, remind us of our place in the planet, the meaning of our existence, all of this philosophical things and furthermore, our director, uh, recognises the power of art exhibitions as three dimensional. Places in which meaning is made as visitor, visitors move within interrelated things such as artifacts, art, images, text, sounds, light. They are places that facilitate and enable embodied learning. A vital tool in helping audiences develop their sense of how they are interconnected.

with physical environments and offer narratives to help people cope with experience of climate change and its conflicted emotions of grief, confusion, anxiety, resolution, change, and care. Jago is so inspiring. That's why I think I needed to mention that. No, I think a lot of people in the sector looking at the Sainsbury Centre and interested in how, uh, you know, how the programme goes.

And if it's successful, it's kind of new approach to, to, to interact with the audience. So it'd be fascinating to see, uh, going forward. 

Simon Stephens So, I've asked you to choose an object that, uh, you feel sort of reflects your work. Can you tell us a bit, a bit about the objects and what you've chosen? 

Ken Paranada Right. So I actually have this. It is a lump of coal anthracite that I'm giving to Simon right now. Thank you, Ken. So that's a material that Paul Cox said, an amazing artist, designer who's originally from Wales, moved to London, studied at the RCA, and now doing this amazing practice that looks into materials of the Anthropocene or materials of climate change.

And so for our upcoming season, Paul Coxedge will be presenting his sculpture entitled Coalescence. So, these are like the, the renders that I'm showing Simon right now. It's going to be in the living area. That's what we call the permanent collection at the Sainsbury Centre. And Paul Coxedge is envisioning how to visualise The amount of coal we consume to light a 100 watt light bulb for a year.

And apparently it requires a lot and it's around, I think, 140 kg of coal to be able just to, to light a 100 watt light bulb. So it's just like a tiny light bulb, but we need to consume 120 kg. Kgs of coal. And so I think, uh, what we're, what Paul is trying to explore is to make, you know, our viewers aware of the types of things we don't see, you know, cause we don't see that the burning of all of this materials that we extract from the planet and visualizing it probably would create this heightened awareness.

Of probably thinking of turning off the light, if, if you, you know, you're not using it because again, we consume energy in such kind of like wasteful way. And so I think that that's going to be my show and tell for this podcast. and so Paul Coxage is also linking that to, the. Alberto Giacometti sculpture at the Sainsbury Centre.

the sculpture basically alludes to Giacometti's the woman, it's a standing figure, and Paul is relating it to the composition of the body as well, that we are 12 to 18 percent carbon, which is again, the coal, the coal's composition. So it's like that poetic gesture of how we relate people. to a material bodily, but also poetically.

And it also talks about the complexities of coal, because if we don't burn coal, we can actually use it to filter our waters. And, there are kinds of like, you know, possibilities here. What if we stop using coal to create energy, but instead use it to filter waters? Planet for our future. How do we adapt to an ever transforming world?

Simon Stephens Thanks, Ken. And maybe briefly, do you just mind describing the object for our listeners? I think they'd be interested to hear it described. 

Ken Paranada Well, it's a lump of coal. It has a lot of, different impurities, I think, right there. There's like a sheen and, uh, it's black. I mean, but the black is very, lustrous.

There's that sheen and there's that, reflection of light that is. You know, inherently in the material, it's also quite rough and it has a texture that, you know, kind of like refers to sediments. It refers to that kind of shape of the planet. And I think, again, it's so poetic to again, just confront what we don't see normally, because this are extracted from the heart of the planet.

It's very sort of tactile object, isn't it? And it's slightly lighter than I thought, but it's also quite shiny. So it's really, yeah, you definitely want to hold on to it. It's got, it's got a great feel.

Simon Stephens Well, that's brilliant, Ken. Thanks so much. Uh, I think we've reached the end now, but I've just got one more question that I was interested in.

You talked about near the start, just about, uh, you were born in the Philippines. Is that right? I just wondered how sort of climate crisis is playing out in, in the Philippines and, and, uh, obviously it's an Island, isn't it? I got it. Is it an issue in the Philippines? 

Ken Paranada Philippines has experienced a lot of climate disasters due to climate change.

There's a lot of, uh, typhoons that has been hitting the country since 2010 or further back than that. But yes, this problems are, again, experienced in different countries, and I think they're all Related and connected and, kind of like coming from the Philippines and experiencing all of this climate upheavals.

Whilst I was growing up, I've experienced flooding. I experienced all of these types of how the government warrants us in adapting to it by texting us when, uh, A surge or a tsunami is going to come or a typhoon is going to hit Manila. And so I think coming from that sort of background of like solving and adapting and creating resilience through that sort of context.

I think I will bring something new to the role at the Sainsbury Centre in terms of looking at the possibilities of change to different forms of adaptation, different forms of engagement, and hopefully the floodings that happened in the Philippines will never happen in the UK or the UK ever. you know, any place around the globe because it's really devastating.

Simon Stephens Thanks, Ken. That's a really interesting, if maybe slightly depressing point to end on, but thanks so much for your time. It's been absolutely fascinating.

Ken Paranada Thank you so much, Simon. Glad to be part of your podcast and see you soon. See you soon.

Simon Stephens You have been listening to the Museums Association's Radical Museums podcast. This episode was presented by me. Simon Stevens. Other episodes of our podcast can be found on all the usual channels. We'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts about this podcast and what museum activism means to you. You can find out all about us and our campaigns on our website, which is www.museumsassociation. org. Thanks for listening.