User:PeterUltimo/sandbox

Michael Kaethler (born 20 December 1980) is a Canadian/Italian design theorist, author, curator and a director of the Experimental Observatory on Artistic Freedom. At the the University of Glasgow, he completed an MA in Slavonic and Central European Studies and at KU Leuven he completed a Masters in Human Settlements and later a PhD with an epistemologically oriented focus on Curation and socially-oriented design under Frank Moulaert and Hilde Heynen.

Writing, Research and Teaching
Kaethler has published widely in different fields, including reports on human rights, a newspaper series on psychogeography for the Argentina Independent, ghost writing for a variety of authors, scientific publicationsand books that bring together social-anthropology with art and design--including the books Social Matter, Social Design and The Auto-Ethnographic Turn in Design.

He has researched and taught at a range of research institutions and universities across Europe. He is currently an OSMOS 'Expert', a research associate at the department of architecture at KU Leuven and a lecturer for the Masters of Transdisciplinary design at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED).

Curatorial Work
Kaethler's curatorial activities tend towards the experimental, focusing on social issues and using participatory or engaged methods. The exhibition 'Take[a] Part' and 'Untangling Participation', co-curated with Pablo Calderon Salazar, focused on dialogical and performative actions, toured across five countries. The exhibition 'The City Could Be Otherwise' (hosted by z33), also co-curated with Pablo Calderon Salazar, was organised as an 'Open School' and involved dozens of transdisciplinary contributions including dance, philosophy, psychology and computer science. He co-curated the San Marino Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale with the project 'Ospite, Ospitante' with a focus on the theme of hospitality. As part of this project, he co-founded the Hospitality Lab (with Alice Fraccaro and Federica Natalia Rosati), which hosted dozens of individuals and groups from different sectors of society to reflect on the materialisation of hospitality and which continues to explore this theme through research, residencies and writing.

In 2024, Kaethler, with the artist and editor-in-chief David Liver, co-founded the research, writing and curatorial project the Experimental Observatory on Artistic Freedom, involving exhibitions and publications through a partnership with the Council of Europe.