What happens before, between, and after the public life of exhibitions? There is an invisible ecology that both strains and sustains curatorial work, that often goes unacknowledged, and that can be described as an expanded notion of practice. Işın Önol brings together three renowned international curators—Hoor Al Qasimi, Charles Esche, and Ruth Estévez—to discuss this conception of practice, opening the way to a broader understanding of how curatorial work becomes possible and legible within complex institutional and social systems. They’ll address the ways in which infrastructures, epistemic systems, and institutional norms influence the negotiations, commitments, and compromises that practitioners have to make—decisions that are formed, deferred, or withheld long before cultural projects ever reach the public. This wider view of practice sheds new light on the curatorial field and how we can operate productively and proactively within it.