Edging Disciplines

For the past eighteen years, I have taught the practice, history, theory, and ethics of curating. Throughout this time, one of the most recurrent themes has been the impossibility of ascribing a limit to curating. Where does it end and where does it begin? In order to teach curating, that is, in order to provide some kinds of limits to it, I had to borrow from many disciplines: art, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, history, political science, cultural studies, etc. In each case, I looked for what seemed pertinent to the task of framing curating within somewhat permeable boundaries. Now that the activity of curating extends to a wide range of practices not always related to either the visual or culture, how am I to continue this teaching? This essay provides both a personal trajectory and an analysis of this edging of disciplines at stake in curatorial studies.