Sven Christian is a writer, editor, and curator. In December 2024 he was appointed Chief Curator of the ARAK Collection (Doha, Qatar), having served as curator of NIROX Sculpture Park and the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture (South Africa, 2022–24); Assistant Curator at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA, 2017–18); and Assistant Editor at ART AFRICA magazine (2015–17). Sven is the editor of FORM Journal, published by the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and the University of Johannesburg Press, Ashraf Jamal’s will develop research for a hypothetical PhD on silence as a form of political agency, research soft play and pre-linguistic propaganda, and explore possibilities for institutional collaborations between ARAK and Griffin. Time permitting, he will also compile the archival material generated through interviews the month before at Ampersand Foundation, New York, about the making of Dumile Feni’s scroll. Strange Cargo: Essays on Art (2022), and co-editor of Bruce Murray Arnott: Into the Megatext (2023); Coral Bijoux’s Dreams as R-evolution (2020); and William Kentridge’s Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work (2019). His writing has been published by Routledge, Phaidon, OnCurating, The Garage Journal, Ellipses: Journal of Creative Research, and The Thinker, amongst others. He holds an MA in Contemporary Curatorial Practices (University of the Witwatersrand, 2020) and a Bachelor of Fine Art (Rhodes University, 2011).

During his residency at Griffin, Sven will develop research for a hypothetical PhD on silence as a form of political agency, research soft play and pre-linguistic propaganda. Time permitting, he will also compile the archival material generated through interviews the month before at Ampersand Foundation, New York, about the making of distinguished South African artist Dumile Feni’s (1942-1991) scroll.

Image: Courtesy of Sven Christian