Curious brings together a selection of interviews with curators and artists conducted by Paul O’Neill at the beginning of the new millennium, when contemporary curating emerged to become the established creative occupation that it is today. Much existing historicisation of this then still new field has tended to emphasise specific career markers, shifts in educational routes, exhibition contexts and networks of circulation. By way of contrast, here first-hand accounts and personal reflections are used as means to unearth, cross-reference and reveal the dynamics of this pivotal period of innovation and change. Employing an ingenious inversion of the adage that to do the same thing repeatedly expecting different results is unwise, O’Neill asking the same questions over and over again has led to an array of incisive responses. In looking backwards to retrieve these personal histories, a complex picture emerges: one in which the recent past adeptly illuminates the present, as well as the potential of future curatorial trajectories. Re-edited from their original transcripts, Curious comprises conversations with Brian O'Doherty, Lawrence Weiner, Seth Siegelaub, AA Bronson, Lynda Morris, Brian Wallis, Andrea Fraser, Okwui Enwezor, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Hou Hanru, Gilane Tawadros, Nicilas Bourriaud, Ute Meta Bauer and Maria Lind.