The Creative Association of Curators TOK is an international curatorial duo founded by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits in 2010 as a platform for research projects at the intersection of contemporary art, social sciences, socially oriented design and architecture. TOK curators place their practice between historical analysis and political imagination and their multilayered, durational and cross-disciplinary projects generate new knowledge about the causes and consequences of changing political realities. Often working outside of usual art spaces, TOK infiltrates into social structures, bringing their strains and corrupt functions into the public discourse in order to revisit the roles and powers of social institutions and redraft their potential future. Existing at the intersection of historical analysis and the political imaginary, TOK investigates mechanisms of local governance, public space, educational systems and others. Post-Soviet public space and modern cities, collective memory and amnesia, the transformation of social institutions, media and strategies for managing public opinion — these are the range of issues that the two curators explore through their work together with artists, performers, historians, playwrights, sociologists and journalists. TOK's activities include curating exhibitions and socially-oriented projects of contemporary art, educational events (conferences, seminars, summer schools, round tables and discussions), and publications.

TOK has extensive experience in curating and organizing art projects in public spaces. In the framework of their ongoing project Critical Mass, a platform for research and development of post-Soviet public spaces, nearly 40 new art projects were commissioned for various public spaces in St. Petersburg, from parks and streets to schools and youth clubs.

Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits have jointly and individually curated projects, exhibitions and educational events at various international art festivals and biennials including the European Biennale of Contemporary Art Manifesta 10, Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Jerusalem Biennale, The Creative Time Summit, 1 Curatorial Forum (St. Petersburg), IV Arctic Art Forum, 4th Construction Festival (Dnipro), the Shelter festival (Helsinki), as well as in the branches of the National Center for Contemporary Art, at the Center for Contemporary Art Fabrica, Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, PRO ARTE Foundation, New Holland, National Sculpture Factory in Cork, Flux Factory, HIAP-Augusta Gallery, Alkovi Gallery, Publics, Israeli Center for Digital Art, Art Cube Artists' Studios. The list of TOK partners and collaborators includes Artangel London, Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art, Goethe Institute, Victoria Art Foundation (VAC), BOZAR Fine Arts Center, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, De Apple, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam - SMBA, raumlabor Berlin, Grafikens Hus, European University St. Petersburg, the University of Minnesota and the Weisman Museum.

TOK curators have participated in residences at The Fire Station in Dublin, Flux Factory in New York, HIAP, Botkyrka (Stockholm), A-I-R Barents. In 2021, TOK will curators-in-residence at KAI Tallinn Art Center. TOK has also been invited to a 6-week research curated “(Re) configuring Territories Residency” at Narva Art Residency, which is scheduled for May-June 2021.

TOK is the winner of the apexart international open call 2020-2021 (the exhibition “Voicing the Silence” was presented in Moscow in the summer of 2021) and the winner of Russian Innovation Art Prize - 2020 for the project 1st Curatorial Forum (together with the team of the NCCA St. Petersburg). In 2021 TOK curated the main project for the 6th Tallin Phonomonth Biennae with an exhibition "Intensive Places".

TOK

SELECTED PROJECTS