Introduction: Co-Constituting, Mediating, and Querying the “Sinophonecene” through Curatorial Practice

The first part of the section title Curating (with) Inhabitants reflects the shared collaborative approach of the four curators interviewed by the editors of this volume. As humans and inhabitants of the planet, these curators all consider and incorporate non-human perspectives to varying degrees in their practice. They are, therefore, “curating (with) inhabitants,” which, on a planetary scale, includes human and other-than-human beings. At the same time, the curators in question do not only create displays for fellow inhabitants in art-related spaces, such as artists, art lovers, and collectors, but inadvertently invite a variety of different entities, both human and other-than-human, to visit and inhabit the spaces. On an even broader scale, some of the curators have included artworks in their shows that specifically manifest how humans themselves are inhabited by non-humans, such as bacteria, fungi, etc.—a notion that is implicated in the latter part of this section’s title Inhabiting (with) Curators.