KuvA Reseach Club in October 2026

Nina Liebenberg: Fight with cudgels, or a Curatorial dance
22.10.2026, at 16:00–18
At Lindqvist Wing, room K-246, Mylly main building, Sörnäisten rantatie 19, Helsinki 
Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki

Abstract:

‘Fight with Cudgels’, or ‘A Curatorial Dance’ 

Fight with Cudgels, one of Francisco Goya’s infamous Black Paintings (1819-1823), depict two men locked in combat while seemingly trapped knee-deep in a bog of mud. The violence captured is visceral. Painted during a period of political repression and war in Spain, and marked by profound disillusionment, the image resonates uncannily with our present global condition. 

In this Research Club, researcher Nina Liebenberg will take this artwork as a curatorial point of departure – exploring it through a performative lecture that will utilise various strategies of the curatorial to test how its meaning can potentially shift through juxtaposition, analogy, metaphor, spacing, rhythm, and association.

Fight with Cudgels will be brought into dialogue with a range of artworks, scientific concepts, literary texts, and philosophical ideas to test how curatorship, rather than resolving conflict, can sustain ambiguity, and create conditions in which alternative readings and values, such as empathy and living-with-and-alongside, can surface. 

Bio:

Nina Liebenberg is a South African artist-curator and researcher based in Finland, currently leading the Kone Foundation-funded project Object Lessons at the University of the Arts Helsinki (2026–2028). Before moving to Finland, she spent over a decade at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Curating the Archive, where she was instrumental in developing its Curatorship programme while teaching, supervising students, and conducting interdisciplinary research. Working across art, science, and the humanities, she uses curatorial practice to connect diverse fields of knowledge, collaborating with researchers and institutions including the University of Oxford (Ethox), the Wellcome Trust, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, Glasgow University, and Iziko South African Museums. She recently completed the post-doctoral project Planthology at Uniarts, which culminated in Synzoochory (2025), a mobile exhibition programme developed with the University of Helsinki, Aalto University, and Uniarts Helsinki. Recent curatorial projects include the 2025 Kuvan Kevät exhibition at Uniarts Helsinki, Uncovering: Women’s Invisible Labour at the Cape (2021), Diagnosing Loss (2022), Object Studies (2023), and Fascination of Plants (2024, with Viikki Plant Scientists).