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= Grégory Castéra = Grégory Castéra (Fréjus, France, 23 October 1981) is a curator, educator, and editor working in the field of contemporary art. He is the co-founder and co-director of Council, Paris (along with Sandra Terdjman); currently guest professor of collective practices at Royal Institute of Arts, Stockholm; publication director of The Against Nature Journal and infrastructure and project advisor for the Kerenidis Pepe Collection in Paris. At the intersection of political ecology, post-conceptualism and performing arts, his projects inquire into how art practices can foster better understandings of societal issues.

After studying Economics (François Rabelais University, Tours, 2001-2003) and cultural management (Sorbonne University, Paris, 2004-2007), Grégory Castéra served as Coordinator and educator at Bétonsalon, Paris (2007-2009). His first exhibition, Playtime (2008 and 2009, co-curated with Mélanie Bouteloup), introduced performative strategies to explore the newly built neighborhood of ZAC Paris Rive Gauche. During the exhibition Castéra was present in the gallery wearing This Consequence, a custom embroidered tracksuit by Ryan Gander and presenting works like The Infinite Library by Daniel Gustav Cramer and Haris Epaminonda and Forms of Nature, Forms of Knowledge, Forms of Beauty by Aurélien Froment. Castéra reflects on the mediation device in the article “La Partition du Guide” (the guide’s score) and conceived experimental mediations with Joris Lacoste for The Villa Arson. From 2007 to 2014, he was member of the Encyclopédie de la Parole (Encyclopedia of Spoken Word), an art collective exploring the spoken word in all its forms, “collecting various recordings and indexing them according to specific phenomena that make up how people speak”. They published a website, commissioned a series of sound pieces and conceived an exhibition to present the collection. On 2009, he collaborated with Frédéric Danos on the conception of Parlement (Parliament), a theater play by Joris Lacoste performed by Emmanuelle Lafont.

From 2009 to 2012, he served as co-director of Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers—“a tool dedicated to artistic research”—with Alice Chauchat and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez. Their program explored artistic forms for knowledge production, including How To Do Things By Theory, a 3-year discursive program and publications by TkH – Walking Theory, La Semeuse, a platform for mutual learning about ecological knowledge by Marjetica Potrč. The program also commissioned new pieces that experimented with the conventions of performing arts: a light performance by Cuqui Jerez ,  a choreography of ideas by Noé Soulier ; performative series by Juan Dominguez, Jennifer Lacey , Bettina Atala , performative publication by Barbara Manzetti , assemblies by Agency ; sensorial practices by Jennifer Lacey with Audrey Gaisan and Barbara Manzetti. They also produced “Architectures of Decolonization”, a curatorial research by Marion von Osten ; “Toxic”, a film by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, and “A Conversation with a Israeli Filmmaker Imagined : Avi Mograbi”, a performance and publication by Akram Zaatari. Parallel to Frank Leibovici's research on artists’ ecosystems “(des forms de vies)”, he took part in Bruno Latour’s Experimental Program in Political Arts and started to inquire into the application of the concept of “Ecology of Practices” to art, leading to “Des récits ordinaires” (on ordinary narratives), an “exhibition-training” and a publication conceived with Yaël Kreplak and Frank Leibovici composed of visualizations of transcription of ordinary discussion about works of art.

In 2013, he founded Council with Sandra Terdjman. Conceived as an organization to build bridges between existing institutions and individuals, Council focuses on long term, collaborative projects around societal issues. Following proposals from Bruno Latour’s Compositionist Manifesto, they believe that “assembling knowledge from various field can foster a better understanding of societal issues”. Operating as an office without presentation venue, Council has developed an exhibition program on the transformation of hearing with Deaf knowledge (Infinite Ear, Bergen Assembly, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art , CentroCentro ), a publication program on the interpretation of “Crimes Against Nature” (The Against Nature Journal ), a fellowship program for cultural practitioners who develop social initiatives (AFIELD ), a conversation market about the anthropocene (Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knoweldge #18 ) and took part in productions of works by Tarek Atoui , Rosalind Nasashibi and Lucy Skaer , Zhou Tao , Valentina Desideri, Myriam Lefkowitz and Lendl Barcelos , and Carlos Motta.

Grégory Castéra describes Council’s method of “inquiries” in his essay “Transforming, Composing, Instituting, Disappearing: Four movements of the Curatorial Inquiry”. Following an event on collective practices curated with Council in collaboration with Raimundas Malašauskas, Claire Tancons and Kathryn Weir at Iaspis (Collectively, 2019), Grégory Castéra initiates a new Post-Master on the ecological dimensions of collective practices at The Royal Institute of Arts, Stockholm (September 2020 – June 2021). Asking “How does the current ecological and technological condition affect the way that we live, work and think collectively?”, the course aims to “develop an extensive understanding of collective practices in the arts and across other domains and traditions, proposing an experimental method for mutual learning, based on the elaboration of a repertoire of collective practices”. Through Council’s reflection on the social role of patrons and collectors, he periodically advises the Kerenidis Pepe Collection (Iordanis Kerenidis and Piergiorgio Pepe), where he facilitates the development of their infrastructure and projects—such as Phenomenon, a biannual project for contemporary art held in the Aegean island of Anafi, Greece. Together, they curated Multitudinous Seas at Hippocrène Foundation, Paris, in 2019.

Castéra also curated Les Belles Images (with Céline Poulin, La Box, Bourges, 2010 ) and Foreign Places (with Caroline Dumalin, Wiels, Brussels, 2016 ). He gave talks and workshops at Art in General, bak , Estonian Center for Contemporary Art, Centre Pompidou Paris, De Appel, Dhaka Art Summit, Dutch Art Institute, ESAAA, Fiac,Gulbenkian Foundation, Institut National Histoire de l'Art, Kaaitheater, Konstfack, MiArt, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, SciencesPo Paris, Sharjah Biennial, Statens Konstråd, TBA21, Tensta Konsthall, Violette&Co. As an expert, he took part in several jury and board, such as Drac Ile de France Dance committee, French Ministry of Culture Art and Research committee, Visible Award, and Prix Science Po pour l’Art Contemporain. He received the Medicis Hors Les Murs fellowship on 2014 and was the 2017 Witte de With curatorial fellow.