Activites

CURRENT CALL FOR POTENTIALS

NSU Circle 7 Artistic Research: Summer Session Call for Participation 2017

Functions, Fissures and Failures: How artistic research can break and build societal strategies

 July 26th – Aug 2nd, 2017 in Saulkrasti, Latvia

Invitation

We invite scholars and artists from all fields to take part in our Practicing Communities: Transformative societal strategies of artistic research study circle, a migratory non-hierarchical group of international artistic researchers. Our circle is developed within the Nordic and Baltic framework of Nordic Summer University. Since its inception, the primary aim has been to provide a forum for experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration welcoming members both from within and outside of universities and art institutions.

Theme

In this summer session, artistic research Circle 7 will be welcoming workshops, working groups, interventions, presentations and experiments exploring themes of Functions, Fissures and Failures: How artistic research can break and build societal strategies. Potentials for presentations, performances, experiments, workshops and provocations may include:

  • Considering impact of breaking and failing within artistic research and practice
  • Experimenting with ideas of fissures, cracks and breaks as strategy building systems
  • Exploring shifting functions of artistic practice and research within context of failure, breaks etc.
  • Presenting suggestions for breaking/ building strategies within the theme of functions, fissures and failures
  • Demonstrating different ways breaks, failures fissures and functions have affected artistic practice and research, long-term collaborations or experiments

 Study Circle 7

The Circle 7 2016-2018 cycle is called: Practicing Communities: Transformative societal strategies of artistic research and this summer symposium will be the fourth of six symposia taking place in a different Nordic or Baltic country. The focus of Practicing Communities is on building generative communities through the interweaving of localities, practices and strategies. The circle aims to explore and create transformative societal strategies within a space where diversity is welcomed and fostered. The study circle provides a space for theoretical and artistic experimentation and the cross-fertilization of methodologies. It aims to develop insights that could be used in further research.

We welcome proposals for presentations of artistic research and interventions from various disciplines and formats with priority given to proposals such as indoor and outdoor experiments, workshops, demonstrations, on-site collaborations, excerpts of artistic work and theoretical reflections and short papers. Participants are encouraged to form constellation presentations with one or more other members that reflect points of intersection in your work.

Our circle will also run a Lab Night, which will provide a space for performances, workshops and events that would benefit from taking place in the evening. The lab night will support presentations from our circle of varying durations and will be open for all circles to attend.

We will also be running Circle 7 Curated Spaces as a way of sharing the artistic research from our circle with everyone in NSU during the symposium. This work can be in the form of video, sound, and installation as well as 2D or 3D visual work. These will be curated within the spaces shared by everyone at the symposium and can be nomadic in nature.

Suggested formats

Suggested formats are within 30 minutes total, and can be formed of: 5 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion; 15 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion etc. If you wish to suggest longer performances or participatory workshops we are happy to discuss this with you but please note, unfortunately it is unlikely there will be space for durational presentations/performances that last over an hour. Note that English is the favoured language for presentations since our group is international.

How to submit via email – deadline May 1st 2017

To submit a proposal either in the weekly program or the lab night, please include the following:

  1. A written proposal (Max. 350 words) with a title and descriptive subtitle. This text should include your presentation proposal, its format its preferred duration, facilities you need (i.e. technical equipment)
  2. A short bio (Max. 150 words)
  3. If you wish to participate without presentation deadline is May 25th but must send a bio
  4. After you have been accepted, you must register and pay electronically deadline is June 1st

Send proposals and bio via email to coordinators:

Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt and Lucy Lyons: circle7@nsuweb.org

Key dates

  • Deadline to submit proposals is May 1st 
  • Deadline to submit applications for scholarships and grants is May 1st
  • Deadline to submit bios to participate without presenting May 25th 
  • Deadline for electronic payment June 1st

If you wish to have work considered for Circle 7 Curated Spaces please indicate this and send some images.

The preliminary schedule will be announced on May 15, on www.nordic.university where you can also find more information about NSU and sign up for the newsletter.

 Cost and accommodation

Registration fee is paid online and includes accommodation, meals and conference fee. Total cost per adult person ranges from 80 – 550 euros depending on the sort of accommodation you choose.

There are a limited amount of rooms in Munchhausen Hotel therefore we will also offer accommodation for participants in 2 or 4 bed caravans that will be located right next to the main buildings in a forested camp-like environment surrounded by nature. Participants who stay in caravans will be able use bathroom facilities/showers in the main buildings.

  •  Staying in a caravan: from 80 euros to 150 euros
  • Staying in the hotel building: from 200 euros to 550 euros
  • Grant and scholarship holders will be given a place in caravans
  • Cost for grant holders is 60 euros and for scholarship holders 40 euros
  • The total cost per child from ages 4-14 years old is 150 euros
  • Children under the age of 4 pay 50 euros even if they share a room with the parent

 Scholarship program

NSU will this year provide 18 scholarships for students and 18 grants for others in need of a subsidy in order to attend the summer session. The application period is from March 15th –MAY 1st Please note that people who receive grants and scholarships are expected to help ARRKOM with small tasks like writing blog posts, sharing their experience, distributing information if needed, and helping out with setting up and cleaning up the picnic. Further information will follow.

Arrival: Wednesday July 26th 2017

Departure: Wednesday August 2nd 2017

Parents with children

We welcome families at the Summer Session. As previous years, there will be a separate circle for children between 3 and 15 years. In the children’s circle, we offer a variety of activities for children and youth, running parallel to the other study circles. See also: http://nordic.university/study-circles/childrenscircle/

NSU Summer Session

During the Summer Session, NSU’s 8 study circles will come together for symposiums in the same location. You can see a full list of circles, themes and coordinators here: http://nordic.university/study-circles/

Keynote speakers

Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iceland.

Cecilia Malmström Olsson, freelance dance researcher, writer, lecturer.

The Nordic Summer University (NSU) is a Nordic network for research and interdisciplinary studies. NSU is a nomadic, academic institution, which organises workshop-seminars across disciplinary and national borders. Since it was established in 1950, Nordic Summer University has organised forums for cultural and intellectual debate in the Nordic and Baltic region, involving students, academics, politicians, and intellectuals from this region and beyond.

Decisions about the content and the organisational form of the NSU lay with its participants. The backbone of the activities in the NSU consists of its thematic study circles. In the study circles researchers, students and professionals from different backgrounds collaborate in scholarly investigations distributed regularly in summer and winter symposia during a three-year period.

For more information www.nordic.university