on friendship and the political imaginary

Online presentation of two comparative case studies of art practices addressing racialized violence in Brazil and the USA, as part of the 2020 Introduction to Art & Politics course.

Information session online: Wednesday, April 3, 2024 at 18:00–18:30 (CET)

This is an innovative distance/blended course taught online and in face-to-face intensives in different locations across Europe. The course is through English and introduces key themes and questions in respect of politics, affiliation and the ontology of friendship with particular reference to contemporary art practices, theories and institutions. The course is based on current research and framed as an enquiry-based process, where the key task for course participants is the production of a project proposal relevant to their own practice (e.g., theory, criticism, art making, curatorial work, cultural studies, philosophy or other research across the creative arts and the humanities). We also welcome PhD researchers in different arts-based and non-arts based disciplines to audit the course as guest researchers.

Participants are expected to: (i) actively engage in the online workshops, lectures and seminars; (ii) engage in extensive (!) shared reading; (iii) join at least one face-to-face research intensive (from a choice of four); and (iv) and explore the implications of the course themes for their own practice and/or further studies. Participants are specifically invited to develop project ideas connected to the course themes, and relevant to the participants’ own practice, (e.g., theory, criticism, art making, curatorial work, cultural studies, philosophy or other research across the creative arts and the humanities).

guest speakers

Guest speakers in 2021, 2022, and 2023 included inter alia, Nick Aikens, Kathrin Böhm, Jason E. Bowman, Céline Condorelli, Quinsy Gario, Jennifer Hayashida, Maria Hlavajova, Steven Henry Madoff, Walter Mignolo, Jota Mombaça, Sarah Pierce, Bojana Piškur, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Thiago de Paula Souz, Helena Reckitt, Grace Samboh & Ratna Mufida, Shuddha Sengupta, Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Claire Tancons.

Speakers invited for 2024 include researchers at the new Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (to be announced shortly), guest speakers Melanie Pocock and Marilou Launeuville co-curators of the Exhibition (8 March- 7 July 2024) Friends in Love and War — L’Éloge des meilleures ennemies, and other special guests to be announced shortly.

schedule autumn 2024

  • Tues 3 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 1
  • Wed 4 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 2
  • Thurs 5 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 3
  • Tues 10 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 4 (short introductions by some participants)
  • Thurs 12 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 5 (short introductions by some participants)
  • Tues 17 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 6
  • Wed 18 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 7 (short introductions by some participants)
  • Thurs 19 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 8
  • Tues 24 Sept 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 9
  • ——–
  • Wed 2 Oct 13:00-16:00  (CET) Gothenburg meet up
  • Thurs 3 Oct 13:00-16:00  (CET) Gothenburg meet up
  • Fri 4 Oct 10:00-13:00 (CET) Gothenburg meet up
  • Tues 8 Oct 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 10
  • Wed 9 Oct 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 11
  • Thurs 10 Oct 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 12
  • Tues 15 Oct 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 13
  • Tues 22 Oct 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 14
  • Tues 29 Oct 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 15
  • ——–
  • Wed 7 Nov 13:00-18:00 (CET) Venice meet up – during this year’s biennale “Foreigners Everywhere”
  • Thurs 8 Nov 13:00-18:00 (CET) Venice meet up – during this year’s biennale “Foreigners Everywhere”
  • Fri 9 Nov 7 Nov 13:00-18:00 (CET) Venice meet up during this year’s biennale “Foreigners Everywhere”
  • Tues 12 Nov 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 16
  • Tues 19 Nov 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 17
  • Tues 26 Nov 17:00-19:30 (CET) Session 18
  • ——–
  • December – no meetings, work on individual project proposals and presentations
  • ——–
  • Tue 14 Jan 17:00-19:30 (CET) final presentations by participants
  • Wed 15 Jan 17:00-19:30 (CET) final presentations by participants
  • Thurs 16 Jan 17:00-19:30 (CET) final presentations by participants

applications

Application via www.universityadmissions.se (for international applicants) and via www.antagning.se (for Swedish applicants).

in previous years

In Autumn 2023 the course was structured in four phases: Phase 1: (September) Terms: introductory series of lectures and seminars looking at some of the central terms and themes pertaining to the question of friendship and the figure of ‘the friend’. Phase 2: (October) Sources and Accords:extensive reading across a range of disciplinary sources, with reading seminars to support the reading process. Phase 3:  (November-December) Fall-outs, break-ups and estrangements: working with a series of guest contributors we explore the fault-lines, tensions and divergent constructions of the figure of the friend, with particular attention to the contestation of humanist and liberal universalisms, and a range of decolonial, posthuman/more-than-human, materialist, and post-representationalist strategic re-orderings of the figure of the friend. Phase 4: Responses, reconciliations, reneges and remains: participants share their own project proposals informed by responding to the material encountered through the course (January 2024)