The Providence Biennial has been collaborating since 2024 with a broad swath of contemporary art curators from across the state of Rhode Island and nearby 'SouthCoast' Massachusetts, to form a robust peer-to-peer coalition of changemakers preparing to become a public-engaging alliance.
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The Coalition initiative signals the end of the former siloed curatorial practice in our region. Instead, contemporary art curators in southern New England choose to work and communicate collectively, in open collaboration with a spectrum of our publics. We will examine what curatorial agency means to us, and to the many communities of our region who are our featured artists, audiences, and patrons. Together we wish to activate understanding of the complexities and values of curatorial intention that inform the experience of contemporary art.

Importantly we address the central question, What is curatorial agency?
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By stewarding dynamic, diversely accessible, publicly engaging programs in 2026—in person co-hosted panels in a variety of regional venues and social circulations of reels, short videos, and curatorial spotlights—we will delve into critical issues in the multiple community involving profession of curating.
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In the year ahead we aim to stimulate new ways of seeing and experiencing contemporary art through the region's resilient and evolving curatorial ecosystem. We will consider how curatorial choices convey meaning, shape audience experience in and beyond exhibitions, and demystify the roles of unseen labor behind the work.
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With our partnership producing exceptional connections between artists, curators and communities, we will explore what curatorial agency means and what it yields distinctively for creatives and public audiences across our region.
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Various publicly accessible manifestations will enable everyone to participate with conviction, advancing understanding of the "art scene" purposefully, with deepened comprehension and confidence.