LESSON 0
Workshop with Tania Bruguera

Lesson 0 is a space for reflecting and questioning today's state of art education, focusing on proposals beyond the usual and look for other ways of teach/learn. Lesson 0 is developed as a transversal project, where different formats coexist. The idea is to assemble exhibition formats with spaces or events to inquire our object of research, in order to encourage collaborative and horizontal practices among artists and agents.

Taking as an starting point the proliferation of specialized courses in contemporary art, not only for artists but also for curators, designers, and researchers in the last years, and their insertion in the artistic circuit, Lesson 0 reflect on this abundance position ourselves on "the opposite side", what one might call "dis-education", "unlearning", or an "anti-academic" stance; but also the self-education, education for infection or group work learning. Information or experience transfer between artists' generation, and any search for one-self tools, one-self interests, out of the box ideas or experimental approaches are vitals nowadays.

Arte Útil aims to question the supposed uselessness of art, working with experiences directed at implementing art within society. According to Tania Bruguera, art should no longer be considered somewhere problems can be indicated so much as a place where proposals and possible solutions can be generated.

The workshop will explore the category of Arte Útil, from the perspective of artistic, educational and curatorial endeavours, as well as the implications for institutions that can derive from it. Taking different artistic initiatives as the starting point, the workshop will analyse aspects such as ethical responsibility, sustainability and the capacity of art to be a system for social transformation.

CONTROVERSIES

Session 1: Arte Útil, activism and sincerity

Art has the potential for real social change. Yet often initiatives that migrate between art and activism are accused of lacking in either political or artistic sincerity. Who are these initiatives really for, what are their motives and what are they achieving?

Guests:

. Tania Bruguera

. Thomas Phillipe Guya

. Laurie Jo Reynolds

. Jonas Staal

. Elke Uitenuis

Debate and contribute to Arte Útil: Arte Útil projects and case studies are constantly being created and therefore the ‘Association of Arte Útil' will be open online where new examples can be submitted. In the museum, a programme of public discussions, workshops and presentations will tackle some of the central questions and problems raised by the term. Taking place in ‘The Room of Controversies' they will include four main sessions: ‘Arte Útil, Gentrification and Misuse,' ‘Arte Útil, Activism and Sincerity,' ‘Arte Útil, Social Design and Instrumentalisation,' ‘Arte Útil, 2.0 Culture and Disobedience.' The central gallery, the ‘Archive room,' will be an interactive core where users gain insights into different tactics happening throughout the world and where case studies can be suggested, assessed against the criteria, printed and added to the archive.

Cuban America: An Empire State of Mind

Cuban America: An Empire State of Mind includes over 35 contemporary artists of Cuban descent, who have been raised in the States or in Cuba. In this groundbreaking exhibition, a myriad of themes are inspired by America: as the familiar homeland for  second and third  or as the distant, imagined place that has historically empowered diverse ideologies on the Island. In a wide range of perspectives and styles, the United States can be both the backdrop, and the protagonist in diverse narratives. These views, rarely put together, portray multiple landscapes of the concept of empire, so easily associated with both countries, while the works in this exhibition add to the construction of a fresh, as well  as complex, image of America: a Cuban America.

Card Social, cultural, and political discussions are brought to the table while old stereotypes associated with America or Cuba are revisited. In contrast, other artists explore everyday life, make abstractions, or focus on the materials themselves, influenced by nature or the environment. Some artists in the show use contemporary or historical images of American icons and symbols; others draw on remembrances of a distant Cuba that somehow defines them. Cities and their architecture find their way into the work along with imaginary locations.

Cuban America: An Empire State of Mind is co-curated by Yuneikys Villalonga and Susan Hoeltzel and includes a related Cuban video art program organized by guest curator Meykén Barreto. A series of special programs is conducted by guest curator Elvis Fuentes.

SPECTRES OF EVALUATION

Keynote Presentation 4

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This presentation explores Arte Ùtil as an artistic movement; it means not only the beneficial things that art can produce, or the concrete beneficial outcomes for its users, but it means art as a tool for social change. Arte Útil is transforming affection into effectiveness. Arte Útil has no relationship with a view falsely seeing what is good in everything; it rather believes in the possibility of the  people to grow.

Presented by The Centre for Cultural Partnerships, VCA & MCM, University of Melbourne and Footscray Community Arts Centre, the conference will feature keynote international speakers including Dr Sophie Hope, (UK) Artist/Researcher/Academic, Ted Purves, (USA) Artist/Researcher/Academic, and Tania Bruguera (CUBA/ USA) Artist.

This international conference examines creative and critical approaches to evaluation and value in relation to community-engaged arts practice. Through diverse and creative formats and a range of local and international speakers, the conference will explore the relationship between established community arts practices and the appearance of new forms of collaboration and engagement across a range of disciplines, from participatory design to social practice.

The conference marks the culmination of a 3 year Australian Research Council-funded Linkage project, Towards an Integrated Approach for Evaluating Community-based Arts with investigators Dr Lachlan MacDowall (University of Melbourne), Dr Martin Mulligan (RMIT University), Frank Panucci (Australia Council for the Arts) and Dr Marnie Badham as Research Fellow (University of Melbourne).

ARTE ÚTIL, SOCIAL DESIGN AND INSTRUMENTALIZATION
Session 4

On March 6th the last public conversation took place in the Room of Controversies.

The line between Arte Útil case studies and social design is often barely visible. Within these initiatives the question of instrumentalisation often arises with a gap developing between the initiator and users. How and where are people being instrumentalised and to what ends?

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Guests:
. Azra Akšamija (via Skype)
. Jan Boelen
. Tania Bruguera
. Pablo Calderón Salazar
. Jalila Essaïdi
. Jeanne van Heeswijk

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11:00 hrs

Visiting the 'Museum of Arte Útil' with special sandals created by artist Christian Nyampeta and introduction by and discussion with Van Abbemuseum curator Nick Aikens

12:30 hrs

Lunch

13:00 hrs

Plenary discussion on the notion of use in relation to the notion of Franciscan poverty with Adrian Rifkin and Christian Nyampeta

14:00 hrs

Fabric-dying workshop with Christian Nyampeta in line with the idea of habitus both as clothing and way of living

16:00 hrs

Closing

This is the list of initiators and the methods through which the case studies was presented.

Use it Yourself:

Santiago Cirugeda, Luca Pucci, Bik van der Pol, Vivireternamente and Yomango

Institutional Repurpose:

Paulina Cornejo, Ahmet Öğüt, Apolonija Šušteršič and WochenKlausur

Rooms of Propaganda, Legitimation and Belief:

Tania Bruguera, Eduardo Costa, Charles Esche, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Pino Poggi and Stephen Wright

Alegal:

Santiago Cirugeda, Sean Dockray, Núria Güell, Rebecca Gomperts, IRWIN, Ruben Santiago and WochenKlausur

Room of Controversies:

Azra Akšamija, Electronic Disturbance Theatre 2.0, Jalila Essaïdi, IRWIN and Institute for Human Activities

Space Hijack:

NSW Builders Labourers Federation and Victoria Street Resident Action Group, Liz Christy, Santiago Cirugeda, Núria Güell, Memetro, Bonnie O. Sherk and WochenKlausur

Open Access:

Joseph Beuys, Missdata, Daniel Godínez Nivón, Critical Art Ensemble, John Ruskin and Yao Jui-Chung + Lost Society Document

Legislative Change:

Augusto Boal, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Djambawa Marawili - Artists from the Yirrkala region, Provo and Laurie Jo Reynolds

Reforming Capital:

Claudia Fernández, Carla ,Fernández. Grizedale Arts, Rolling Jubilee, Jeannette Petrik, WochenKlausur, Pivot and Publink

Live Projects:

Lara Almarcegui, Artun Alaska Arasli, Tania Bruguera, Núria Güell, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Mike Merrington, Collaboration-O, Publink, WochenKlausur and Wooloo

MUSEUM OF ARTE ÚTIL TEAM:

Nick Aikens, Tania Bruguera, constructLab (with Alex Roemer, Bureau d'Études, Collective Works and others), Annette Eliëns, Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher, Gemma Medina and Alessandra Saviotti

ARTISTS AT THE INSTITUTE

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Taking advantage of the IFA's location in one of the world's leading art centers, the Graduate Student Association invites artists to discuss their work at the Institute. Begun in 1983, these talks are now funded by a generous gift in memory of late IFA Professor Kirk Varnedoe, who inspired the series. The series normally includes two presentations per semester.

Speakers in the Artists at the Institute series have included:
Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Janine Antoni, Alice Aycock, Jose Bedia, Lynda Benglis, Xu Bing, Barbara Bloom, Mel Bochner, David Henry Brown, Tania Bruguera, Matthew Buckingham, Scott Burton, John Cage, Luis Camnitzer, Tammy Rae Carland, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Elena Climent, George Deem, Jim Dine, Carroll Dunham, Peter Eisenman, Stephen Ellis, Karen Finley, Wade Guyton, Eric Fischl, Coco Fusco, Kathleen Gilje, Robert Gober, Leon Golub, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Dan Graham, Nancy Graves, Renee Green, Hans Haacke, Peter Halley, Ann Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, Geoff Hendricks, Gary Hill, Jenny Holzer, Jonathan Horowitz, Bryan Hunt, Emily Jacir, Valerie Jaudon, Joan Jonas, Michael Joo, Donald Judd, Deborah Kass, William Kentridge, Alain Kirili, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Zoe Leonard, Simon Leung, Roy Lichtenstein, Los Carpinteros, Marlene McCarty, Allan McCollum, Julie Mehretu, Andrea Modica, Margaret Morton, Matt Mullican, Vik Muniz, Elizabeth Murray, Shirin Neshat, John Newman, Catherine Opie, Paul Pfeiffer, Ellen Phelan, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Walid Raad, Faith Ringgold, Matthew Ritchie, Tim Rollins + K.O.S., Martha Rosler, Doris Salcedo, Julia Scher, Carolee Schneemann, Collier Schorr, Richard Serra, Andres Serrano, Joel Shapiro, Miriam Shapiro, Shahzia Sikander, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, Pat Steir, Joel Sternfeld, Sturtevant, Mika Tajima/New Humans, Masami Teraoka, Diana Thater, Francesc Torres, Richard Tuttle, Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, Rachel Whiteread, Fred Wilson, Terry Winters, Krzysztof Wodiczko, The Yes Men, Yu Youhan & Li Shan, John Zinser, Andrea Zittel.

BEYOND THE HYPHEN: APPROACHING A POST GEOGRAPHIC CUBA

The purpose of the conference is to bring together students, professors, artists, and hyphenated cubans on a series of ground-breaking discussions about the linkages between Cuba and the rest of the world. Several Cuban artists will be unveiling some of their new work, in direct dialogue with participating scholars and activists.

GUESTS

Scolars:

. Rafael Rojas, Princeton University
. Odette Casamayor, University of Connecticut
. Ruben Gallo, Princeton University
. Eva Silot Bravo, University of Miami
. Walfrido Dorta, CUNY
. Lizabel Monica, Princeton University
. Adrian Lopez-Denis, University of Delaware
. Maria Cabrera Arus, The New School University
. Rachel Price, Princeton University
. Kevin Beovides Casas, Independent Scholar
. Javier Guerrero, Princeton University
. Jacqueline Loss, University of Connecticut
. Gabriela Nouzeilles, Princeton University

Artists:

. Tania Bruguera
. Ana Olema Hernandez
. Rodolfo Peraza
. David D OMNI
. Edgaro Gonzalez of Doble Filo

Writers:

. Enrique Del Risco
. Odette Casamayor, University of Connecticut
. Osdany Morales, New York University
. Michael H. Miranda, Austin University
. Pablo de Cuba Soria, Virginia Commonwealth University

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE

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Sculpture is contemporary art's meta-medium, where artists cross boundaries, invent hybrid processes, and explore innovative content in the areas of object-making, installation, performance, site-work, time-based art, and digital forms. Students of interdisciplinary sculpture develop the conceptual content of their work concurrently with practical, hands-on knowledge of materials and fabrication techniques, enabling them to produce work relevant to their personal vision.

Classes offered within the department combine theory and practice and encourage students to develop transdisciplinary, multimedia approaches to their work and invent collaborations with new audiences and communities. Through this innovative curriculum, students are exposed to a broad range of creative possibilities within the material, spatial, and non-static arts and develop a range of conceptual skills and strategies that allow them to realize content in inventive ways. Students explore both experimental and established approaches to art making.

Courses within the department allow students to build a solid base of constructive and technical skills by working in such areas as wood, metal fabrication, mold-making, casting, assembling, laser cutting, 3D printing, rapid-prototyping, welding, carving, and construction. Students are encouraged to further explore content in video installation, performance, time-based art, photo-sculpture hybrids, 3D computing, and other newer genres, and are challenged to use these skills to make work that is relevant in our complex, diverse, and ever-changing global culture.

Our accomplished faculty provides the theoretical and historical framework to assist majors in developing a sophisticated critical/self-analytical awareness of their practice, and its place within the larger culture. Interdisciplinary sculpture students are encouraged to develop technical mastery, conceptual sophistication, and an understanding of newer and emerging genres; to explore contemporary issues, ideas, and technologies; and to create a practice that recognizes the past while envisioning the future.

The expansive studio facilities for sculpture at MICA are housed in the recently renovated Mount Royal Station, a converted B&O Railroad passenger station that also houses the College's graduate sculpture program, the Rinehart School of Sculpture. New classrooms, a renovated metal shop with upgraded ventilation, and a new glass kiln add to the already well-equipped facilities, which include up-to-date computers and software and dedicated areas for work in plaster, wood, and a metal foundry.

WHY NOT WALK BACKWARD?

Why not walk backward? considers the implications of reiteration. To repeat, when contemporary time threatens to subsume our sense of history and narrative, is to propose a different type of relationship to time. The group of five Australian and international artists in Why not walk backward?, Fiona Abicare, Nina Beier, Tania Bruguera, Catherine or Kate and Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, retrace old steps - their own and others - using appropriation to deal with the ghosts of the past in new and imaginative ways.

Each of these artists utilise performance or strategies associated with performance to appropriate existing, historically significant works of art through homage, reinterpretation or re-enactment. Working at the intersection of performance and appropriation they address issues of temporality and historiography.

Tania Bruguera engenders a profoundly different tenor through her decade-long project of re-enactment in an attempt to effect a reclamation of her Cuban-born compatriot Ana Mendieta's work within Cuban cultural identity.

GUEST ADVISOR

Residents are in dialogue with one another and with advisors (internationally active artists, art critics, exhibition makers and others). Contacts between resident artists and advisors mainly take the form of individual studio visits at the resident artist's invitation.

The make-up of the advisor group shows great diversity as to views of the arts, generation, nationality and one's position in the art world.

At the initiative of residents and advisors, discussions, seminars, excursions and workshops are held on current shared themes arising from one's own work or one's fascinations outside of this.

FIRST ANNUAL MDes COLLOQUIUM-SCALES OF RESEARCH TO REVIEW POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECTS

The Postgraduate Research Projects represent an opportunity for these students to present their ideas in a format which they have researched and developed independently. Given the breadth and cross-disciplinary interests of some of the thesis topics. Tania Bruguera will be part of a distinguished body of external reviewers and experts from the field participating in these reviews.

OPEN ENGAGEMENT

Open Engagement is an international conference that sets out to explore various perspectives on art and social practice, and expand the dialogue around socially engaged art making.

It is directed and founded by Jen Delos Reyes. The 2014 Open Engagement conference is co-presented by the Queens Museum and A Blade of Grass, and takes place at the Queens Museum, New York Hall of Science, the Queens Theater, Immigrant Movement International, and various locations around New York. As in the past, Open Engagement will include a partnership with graduate programs featuring art and social engagement. This year this partnership will include a number of New York-based programs led by Social Practice Queens at Queens College, CUNY. Open Engagement is a free conference that will take place May 16-18, 2014.

Artists have a way of provoking new forms of being, examining and challenging the ways that we live and work, proposing alternative approaches, and suggesting ways of navigating and negotiating existing systems. Open Engagement 2014 features keynote presenters Mierle Laderman Ukeles and J. Morgan Puett, and focuses on the theme of Life/Work. The conference examines how economic and social conditions connect to life values and philosophies and situate the everyday in relation to larger political and social issues including labor, economics, food production, ways of being, and education. What are the impacts of artists living and working in community? What is the work of art today? How has the idea of life's work changed in the 21st century?

The legacies of these two seminal figures have through their practices defined and redefined how life and work can be the foundation for artistic exploration.

#DIGNITYHASNONATIONALITY

The Francis Effect is a new work by Under the Same Sun exhibition artist Tania Bruguera. Its broad aim is to challenge public perceptions of immigration through an artistic response to recent shifts in world culture.

Working within the framework of her ongoing "Dignity Has No Nationality" project, the artist and her collaborators will be stationed outside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to gather signatures on postcards addressed to Pope Francis. Referring to Vatican City as a place that was "born as a conceptual nation without borders," these cards request that the Pope grant citizenship to all immigrants as a gesture toward reuniting the world. The new Pope, former Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the first Latin American Bishop of Rome, has established a papacy built on humility and compassion toward migrants who face challenges in their search for a better life and a safer home. The graphic on the card, an image of the prehistoric Pangaea supercontinent that fragmented to form the seven continents, references a time long before borders between nation-states were conceived of. Members of the public may also sign the petition online at dignityhasnonationality.org.

To complete the performance, Bruguera plans to deliver the postcards and an online petition to the Pope in person once over 10,000 signatures have been gathered.

For more information about the performance, please contact us at

publicprograms@guggenheim.org and feel free to sign the petition, to use the hashtag #dignityhasnonationality , #franciseffect share and spread the word sending to your friends this message to encourage them to visit the website and sign.

UNDER THE SAME SUN: ART FROM LATIN AMERICA TODAY

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This exhibition examines the diversity of today's creative responses to complex shared realities, which have been influenced by colonial and modern histories, repressive governments, economic crises, and social inequality, as well as by concurrent periods of regional economic wealth, development, and progress. Despite financial growth and increased stability in most of the continent over the past decade, it remains divided by social and ethnic differences and marked by political and economic shifts. León de la Barra's exhibition presents artistic responses to the past and present that are inscribed within these contexts, and explores the possibility of the construction of alternative futures.

PAROLE / FORMES

Tania Bruguera's will present her new performance project, www.dignityhasnonationality.org An artistic response to a recent shift in world culture. Dignity has no nationality aims to change public perception on immigration and redress the assault to the citizenship rights of undocumented migrants throughout the globe.

Intended to be a durational work, Dignity has no nationality is a letter-writing campaign created to collect signatures to be presented to Pope Francis, the first Latin American Bishop of Rome, in support of his message against indifference towards immigrants. Pope Francis has spread a message built on humility. He is reaching out to immigrants who face numerous hurdles in their search for a better life and a safe home. This is a purpose we share.

The slogan "Dignity has no nationality" emerged from the Migrant Manifesto developed by Immigrant Movement International for the United Nations Student Conference on Human Rights in 2011, and which stipulates that it is through the acknowledgement of the inalienable rights of people that we can have a true barometer of civilization. This campaign takes as its visual identity the Pangea supercontinent that existed in prehistoric times, approximately 300 million years ago, before it broke apart to form the seven continents, and long before borders between nation-states were established.

By calling Vatican City a "conceptual nation," Dignity has no nationality requests the Pope extend Vatican citizenship, as a concept and as a legal right, to undocumented immigrants, and with this action that he bring the continents back together.

Please sign the petition and join the Dignity has no nationality campaign.

SLOW FUTURE

Dignity has no nationality International Campaign

The theme of the exhibition SLOW FUTURE is degrowth, a social movement advocating that we should abandon the current model of compulsory economic growth and search for ways to improve the quality of life within the limits of capacity of natural environment. The promoters of degrowth, also known as degrowthists, question the supreme value of material possessions and propose alternative models of economy - barter, cooperatives, co-ownership, and community exchange. According to them, it is mistaken to think that economic growth is indispensable for development and that it is the most important goal that everyone should pursue. Supporters of the idea of degrowth believe that it is precisely unrestrained consumption that aggravates social inequalities, not to mention irreversible damage to natural environment. Through their lifestyles, they are trying to oppose the universal pursuit of growth (in development and in economics), which according to them, creates far more social harm than objective benefits. In order to cut down consumption, we don't have to make sacrifices or reduce our quality of life. It would be enough to use alternative means and methods at a larger scale, such as: recycling, green transport, converting deserted buildings into flats; and finally - to engage local organizations in decision-making processes relating to changes in public space. In times of economic crisis, such concepts become highly appreciated and inspire artists from all over the world.

Artists:
. David Adamo

. Bigert & Bergström

. Bianca Bondi

. Tania Bruguera

. Fernando Bryce

. Ella de Búrca

. Luis Camnitzer

. Jota Castro

. Joachim Coucke

. James Deutsher

. Maarten Vanden Eynde

. Kendell Geers

. Nuria Güell

. Patrick Hamilton

. Cinthia Marcelle

. Tiago Mata Machado

. Gordon Matta-Clark

. Ingrid Wildi Merino

. Mariele Neudecker

. Wilfredo Prieto

. Aleksandra Wasilkowska

. David Zink Yi

UNDER THE SAME SUN EVENTS

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With diverse bodies of work that address democracy and the disenfranchised, these two artists, whose respective histories have seen them confront censorship and embrace celebration, meet over a shared practice of social concern. Exploring the use of language and visual imagery in powerful performative acts, Tania Bruguera and Karen Finley track a creative process stemming from discomfort and intellectual resistance. Join us for a dialogue with the artists about the practice of art as life.

Tania Bruguera will be meeting with israelis academics, artists, activists, lawyers and people in general who want to come to discuss the possibility to dissolve Israeli State in order to create in the region a sanctuary for immigrants and refugees of the world as a gesture from the israeli people to honor their own jewish history.

CITIZEN CULTURE: ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS SHAPE POLICY

Dignity has no nationality International Campaign

Citizen Culture examines effectiveness and outcomes within the growing field of social practice by exclusively featuring projects that have transformed legislation and society. The projects in Citizen Culture serve as case studies for how artists can work directly with municipal governments, NGOs, legislators, and advocates to effect change. They reveal the extraordinary potential for art to address critical contemporary issues including prison reform, citizen participation, immigration, environmental policy, and socially-responsible urban development.

Performance artist Tania Bruguera stages a political movement within SMMoA's exhibition space, engaging Citizen Culture attendees and local immigration advocates in a large-scale postcard campaign known as The Francis Effect. The Francis Effect's broad aim is to challenge public perceptions of immigration through a participatory, artist-driven response. Bruguera and her collaborators collect signatures on postcards addressed to Pope Francis, which endorse his supportive stance toward immigrants and, adopting the concept of Vatican City as a state with open borders, urge the Pope to grant Vatican citizenship to undocumented immigrants world-wide. The Francis Effect is presented by the Santa Monica Museum of Art in collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the Guggenheim UBS Global Art Initiative and the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University.

LA UNIVERSIDAD DESCONOCIDA (THE UNKNOWN UNIVERSITY)

Artist Conversation

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The program includes exhibition case studies and conversations with artists, which address critical issues of collecting and curating in the context of studies of anthropology, colonialism, modernism, and political activism. Curator case studies will be moderated by Jens Hoffmann of the Jewish Museum and Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy of Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in New York. Participating exhibition artists include Tania Bruguera and Luis Camnitzer, among others.

Note:

The talks will conclude at approximately 6 pm and will be followed by a reception and exhibition viewing of Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today.

BRUJAS PERO TAMBIEN BRUJOS

Dignity has no nationality International Campaign

MEADOWS PRIZE RESIDENCY

"This project includes three elements that get strong reactions from people-religion, immigration, and politics-and it asks, ‘is art able to change something?'," said Tania Bruguera. "For my Meadows Prize residency, I wanted to do an action that engages people's imagination. When I talk to people, I love seeing the moment of understanding, of ‘what if,' that people have, even if they don't agree necessarily with the cause. And, in another side of this project, I want to call on the Church to not simply provide charity, which they have done for centuries, but to implement long-term change and protection for immigrants and refugees everywhere."

EUROPEAN MASTER IN MIGRATION AND INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS

Bruguera's classes will be on Arte Útil Case Studies dealing with art and activist, specifically with immigrant issues.

EMMIR is the European Master in Migration and Intercultural Relations. It is the first African-European Erasmus Mundus Master Course in Migration Studies. The first cohort set out to study in September 2011; since 2013 the programme is fully accredited by the national agencies as part of the European pilot project JOQAR.

EMMIR is a unique study programme focusing on migration through an intercultural approach. It provides profound theoretical skills in migration studies combined with field work in Europe and Africa. It is designed as a multidisciplinary programme that addresses important contemporary issues in an emerging field of study.

EMMIR includes study periods in both, Europe and Africa. Students' mobility is understood as a key to mutual understanding of different views and cultures of migration and movement and will sharpen intercultural sensitivity.

EMMIR students become acquainted with different cultures and academic traditions and gain knowledge about migration issues in internships. They will gain profound skills and specialise in of the four programme foci, this will provide them with excellent chances for employment in national and international governmental and private sector organisations or in academia. Graduates will be awarded a joint degree by the EMMIR partner universities.

ARTECINEMA

The 19th annual Artecinema International Festival of Films on Contemporary Art

Cuban artist Tania Bruguera sets up participatory events which delve into the themes of social control and migration. The director accompanied her to Queens during the realization of her Immigrant Movement International Project.

RESISTANCE. SUBJECTS, REPRESENTATIONS, CONTEXTS

International and Interdisciplinary Conference

A number of recent events in different parts of the world, such as the uprisings in Ukraine, Occupy Gezi, and the protests in Northern Africa, have brought back the issue of ‘resistance' to both public and scholarly attention. As manifold as the forms that resistance takes at the beginning of the 21st century are the explanations for these phenomena: In western societies, the crisis of global capitalism, along with a general loss of trust in institutionalized politics, is often made responsible for the recent emergence of new movements of protests and resistance. By contrast, in regions such as Northern Africa, political uprisings have commonly been regarded as a reaction long overdue to totalitarian regimes and their infrastructures of oppression and control. With the disclosure of practices of surveillance through national secret services such as the NSA, then, similar mechanisms of power have been made visible in western societies, which, in turn, are said to have enhanced tendencies towards civil disobedience and resistance.

Not least because of its 40th anniversary and the commemoration of the host University's name patron, Carl von Ossietzky, the conference takes these developments as a starting point to explore phenomena of resistance in different historical and contemporary contexts from an interdisciplinary and transcultural perspective in order to add to a theoretical debate on the term and concept(s) of resistance. The conference will be framed by three major questions: 1. What is ‘resistance'? 2. On which normative grounds do forms of resistance work, how are they justified? 3. Who uses the term/concept of ‘resistance'? When, where, and for what purposes? In order to approach these questions, the conference takes a distinctly comparative view on the various notions of resistance in different disciplinary as well as social and/or cultural contexts in order to discuss whether ‘resistance' is an exclusively ‘western' concept, or whether there are concepts of resistance that are not based on or refer to western intellectual, political, or ideological traditions.

By opening up an interdisciplinary and international dialogue, the conference's goal is to disclose the specific contextual preconditions, aesthetic forms, and political/ideological implications of both past and present forms of resistance. Through these context-specific approaches to historical and current phenomena and concepts of resistance, then, the conference also contributes to uncovering the highly ethical dimension inscribed into public and scholarly debates on resistance on the one hand and into acts of resistance (or what is designated as acts of resistance, respectively) on the other. In this way, the conference may help discuss the normative references that lie at the heart of both practices and discourses of resistance, but which are only rarely made explicit.

RESISTANCE. SUBJECTS, REPRESENTATIONS, CONTEXTS
International and Interdisciplinary Conference

Chair:

. Martin Butler

Speakers:

. Tania Bruguera
. Peter McLaren
. Rainer Winter

For a detailed conference program, please consult the conference's website at:
www.resistance.uni-oldenburg.de

Conference registration
If you would like to attend the conference, please register at:
http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/resistance/registration/

Registration closes on October 20, 2014.

THE ALIEN WITHIN
A living laboratory of Western society

Taking inspiration from Schlingensief's experimental ideas, The Alien Within morphs into an open-ended site of research. Intermittently throughout the duration of the project, talks, screenings, live concerts, and performances are held by Swedish and international artists such as, among others, Tania Bruguera, The Errorists (Hilary Koob-Sassen and Andreas Köhler), Jeuno JE Kim and Ewa Einhorn, the independent theatre group Institutet, as well as renowned scholars like filmmaker-theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha and sociologist Saskia Sassen. Their contributions seek to arouse debate around subjects such as the elaboration of a future for cosmopolitanism, the ability of fear to generate images and reshape the mechanisms of media and society, the timeless debate on the cross-over between art and politics.

The think tank proposes a laboratory in which socio-political issues, cultural traditions, and artistic methodologies resonate with and over-paint one another. These are analyzed through the lens of Malmö's specific urban setting where almost one-third of its citizens is born abroad-a trend currently on the rise-and planning strategies have built away a decaying post-industrial past in the hopes of attracting knowledge-based industries. These have left unsolved issues related to the city's history of immigration and ethnic segregation, now at the center of intense public debate. The Alien Within intends to address how every person is an active agent in creating the world we inhabit together. It does so by reflecting on forward-thinking models of contemporary Western society, while giving audiences the opportunity to take responsibility for the world as it is and celebrating the cosmopolitan fabric that makes up the Konsthall's own urban reality.

CREATIVE SUMMIT. Section 5: Migrations

Exploring socially and politically engaged art in a global context

Migrants are individuals caught between the boundaries of nation-states and the reality of international economics. These conditions place them paradoxically at the center of global politics and yet still at the periphery of international human rights. How are artists navigating and producing works at the heart of this paradox?

Moderator:

. Soraya Post

Participants:

. Tania Bruguera

. Olga Jitlina and Andrey Yakimov, The Amanda Weil Award Lecture

. Ahmet Ögüt

. Tone Olaf Nielsen

. Christopher Robbins and John Ewing, Ghana ThinkTank

. Favianna Rodriguez

120 HEC

This M.F.A. is directed to support students to advance their practice and artistic agency through a rigorous approach towards how they will position themselves as artists. The programme is taught by active practitioners with national and international profiles and includes artists, curators, writers and theorists. For both student and educator this programme is dedicated to providing a catalyst by which they can pursue artistic interests. Our work is therefore, also informed by the research interests and specialism of our educators and the programme is preparatory for future third cycle study.

This M.F.A. programme is concerned by the possibilities of art for the twenty-first century and aims to support students to question, challenge and articulate the terms of engagement by which their artistic practice - and the art they make can contribute to, critique and challenge the contemporary world. We do not discriminate by media and seek students who want to develop their command of art-making with a commitment to investigating contemporary and historical, political and cultural conditions and contexts for their work, through combining research, idea, material, discussion, skill, observation, critical thought, action and reflection.

ACTIVATING PUBLIC SPACE

Discussion about socially and politically engaged art in public space. The conversation develops some of the most pertinent questions from Creative Time Summit: Stockholm 14-15 November to ask. Concrete examples from the global and local art scenes will be used as starting points for a broader discussion

Participants:

. Tania Bruguera

. Carl Oscar Sjogren / Non existent Center

. Nato Thompson

. Lisa Rosendahl

. Skogen

. Anna Van Der Vliet

UNSCRIPTED

Unscripted Bal Harbour hosts a series of annual art chats that explore topics pertinent to commissioning public art projects and exhibiting in the public sphere. The program brings art experts including curators, artists, architects and designers- from around the world to Miami with the aim of fostering critical dialogue that is both timely and accessible to members of the art community.

Pablo León de la Barra, the UBS MAP curator of Latin American art at the Guggenheim Museum inNew York will be speaking to Tania Bruguera, Cuba's most renowned contemporary installation and performance artist, having worked together this year as part of the exhibition "Under the same sun: Latin America art today"at theGuggenheim Museum. León de la Barra and Bruguera's conversation will address her work The Francis Effect, a performance where the artist and her collaborators collected signatures on postcards addressed to Pope Francis that endorse his supportive stance toward immigrants, among others.

VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK

Ritual Body - Political Body

Manifestos:

. Migrant Manifesto

. Manifesto on Artist's Rights

. Citizens Manifesto for European Democracy,Solidarity and Equality

The VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK is an independent, international no-budget people-project.

Everybody in the team listed below, as well as the invited artists, are dedicated art professionals who commit themselves to the realisation of this project without being paid for it, and still they do it passionately because they believe that it carries importance to share this art and program (free admission) with the audience in Venice despite the lack of financial fundings.

This is very special, and each one reserves gratefulness for contributing with her/his personal time and professional knowledge, complimentary competences and labour-of-love to this project made by people for the people. The motivation is linked to a common vision, and only together we can step beyond our limitations and make the seemingly impossible possible as a matter of pure Begeisterung.