Socially Engaged Art Projects: Community and Participation

Online Course by Node Center with Stine Marie Jacobsen

Duration: May 14 – Jun 4, 2018
Fee: 154€
Max seats: 30
Enroll before: May 10, 2018
Dedication: 3 hrs/week

This course will introduce and discuss different socially engaged art projects. It is addressed to curators, artists and cultural workers, who wish to create, organise or develop projects that involve forms of social engagement, where the participants are involved directly in the creative process. Furthermore this course is for those who wish to generate better tools to work in collaborative situations with social groups, communities and publics outside of the art world.

Artists and curators frequently immerse themselves in working with non-art communities, this course will look deeper into positive and negative conclusions that can result from this approach. When working at the intersection of art and social realms the very first question and communication should be: Who benefits from the project and what are the expectations of the project initiator and different participants? We all carry biases and prejudices and we will discuss ways to(self-)reflect on this.

Furthermore, we will give valuable methods and tips on how to balance the project idea with the interests of the intended participants, taking into consideration the ethical and structural aspects of collaboration.The course will contain a few simple practical exercises tailored to challenge your current collaborative tools and put theory into practice.

Week 1: Collaboration and communication.

Course overview
Introduction and discussion of different socially engaged artprojects
Preparations and research.
Expectations and intentions for cultural worker and participants
Simple practical collaborative tools and exercises for Week 2

Week 2: Contracts & ethics vs. project idea

Feedback on Week exercises
Different tools and approaches for collaboration with non-artinstitutions
Positive and negative possible outcomes from socially engaged art
Who benefits from the project and in what way? Different examples and contract samples

Week 3: Documentation vs. project idea.

Deciding on an approach – roles and behaviour – own vs. participant(s)
Different examples of approaches to roles
Ethical, structural aspects and approaches versus a project idea and the needs of participants
Assignment: Write a social engaged art project in two versions: in art and non-art language

Week 4: Fundraising, Press and After-life.

What text version to use when
Making (time) budgets
In what conceptual way is the project modifiable?
When and how to follow up on engagements

For more information and to apply, please visit: https://nodecenter.net