● Program Overview

The Exhibition to Come with Marcela Vieira

How do you imagine an exhibition that doesn't exist yet? No theme. No walls. No rules. Not yet.

The Exhibition to Come is a collective, process-based curatorial experiment built entirely from scratch. Together, you'll treat curating itself as a live laboratory: a speculative space where an exhibition isn't built to illustrate an idea you already had, but slowly composed from the work gathered in the room.

Led by curator Marcela Vieira, co-founder of aarea, a platform commissioning web-based art,  participants use their own artistic or theoretical work as raw material for a shared curatorial process. Drawing on Marcela's expertise in web-based art, archives, and decentralized exhibition models, the group searches for unexpected affinities and creative friction between works, and spins those into the thematic and formal threads of one collectively authored project.

The work culminates in a curatorial dossier: a living portfolio and complete conceptual framework the group can use to pitch, host, or activate real exhibitions at museums or independent galleries.

Open to artists across disciplines: visual art, digital media, performance, text, curatorial and researchers.

Enroll Now 
● Program Overview

What You’ll Gain

  • A professional curatorial dossier, co-authored and ready to pitch to galleries and institutions

  • Hands-on experience with a full curatorial process, from first brainstorm to finished proposal

  • Exposure to contemporary curatorial strategy, web-based art history, digital preservation, and decentralized exhibition models

  • Rigorous, supportive feedback and conceptual guidance from the group

  • Practical tools for situating your practice within larger political, technological, and social questions

  • A working framework you can reuse to organize future exhibitions

Program Structure

September 3 – December 17, 2026

Thursdays, 12–1 PM ET

Sessions move through a recurring set of working modes: close readings on curatorial practice and media theory, creative writing and conceptual exercises, collaborative mapping and portfolio-sharing, peer feedback and critique, layout and design workshops, and hands-on dossier development.

Recordings will be available for members unable to attend live. But regular participation is necessary.

● Program Overview

Meet the Instructor

Marcela Vieira

RESEARCHER, Curator & eDITOr

Marcela Vieira is a researcher, curator, and editor working at the intersection of contemporary art, technology, and digital culture. She is co-founder and curator of aarea, a pioneering platform founded in 2017 that commissions and exhibits internet-native artwork, with projects developed alongside institutions including the Jeu de Paume (Paris), the São Paulo Biennial, the CCA Wattis Institute (San Francisco), MACBA (Barcelona), Pro Helvetia (Switzerland), and NT2 (Montréal).

She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC-USP) and editor-in-chief of Revista Rosa. She holds a PhD in Semiotics from Paris 8 University, completed under joint supervision with the University of São Paulo, with research focused on digital preservation, media care, and the reactivation of cultural archives.

● Program Overview

Frequently Asked Questions

  • TAAS is for artists, curators, makers, and doers at every stage of their artistic life. Many of our members already have undergraduate or graduate art degrees. We believe strongly that this mixed-level experience is an incredible opportunity.

  • The uniqueness of TAAS is that our instructors are often working artists and curators with complex schedules, therefore you’ll see amazing artists come, go and return from quarter to quarter.

  • TAAS is not accredited — intentionally. We believe the most valuable art education happens in dialogue with working artists and curators, not through institutional checkboxes.

  • TAAS operates on Zoom embedded in a networking software that operates as our digital campus. The platform includes a variety of messaging options, profile pages for artists to represent themselves and their work, and clubs in which they can host break-out sessions outside of classes.

  • The Alternative Art School uses Mighty Networks as our online campus and platform. This media-based learning environment allows artists to collaborate, upload their work, and share across vast distances.

  • TAAS is an online school and students need access to a dependable wifi network and a desktop or laptop computer with a working webcam and microphone. Some students find Direct Ethernet cables helpful to boost connectivity if their wifi networks are unstable.

  • While TAAS is not a non-profit, we have a fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, that accepts donations on our behalf and offers a tax-deduction for all donations. We certainly encourage those with means and a big heart to support this initiative (see “Support” tab to donate.)