Kate Fowle is Chief Curator for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and Director-at-Large at Independent Curators International (ICI) in New York.

Founded in 2008, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art was one of the new wave of institutions established since the turn of the millennium in (re)emerging art centres around the world. Conceived as a place where people, art, and ideas, create history, the Museum provides access to knowledge, the agency to ask questions, and a forum for public debate. Through prioritizing collaboration and dialog it has developed as a production house, working closely with artists to form a broad program of exhibitions, performance, education, training, research, and publishing that engages with both international and local concerns.

Having welcomed over 2 million visitors since 2015—when Garage moved to its first permanent home—the Museum has become integral to Moscow’s creative life.  Now, in preparation for the 10th anniversary, attentions are turning to the future. As a contemporary institution in an evolving, young culture—one that is not beholden to either the nineteenth- or twentieth-century museum models—the question is what imaginaries will support the advancement of a reflexive museum that can critically contribute to twenty-first-century society?

With thanks to Scrap Metal Gallery for providing the venue.