Dates: 29th of June – 5th of July
Arrival date: 28th of June
Departure date: 6th of July
What does curating music mean in the world that we live in today? Does a curator – that can today imply in the field of music an artistic director, performer, composer, collective, programmer or producer – have a social role to play? What makes a work or performance connect with audiences today, and how are we producers and facilitators sensitive to the ambitions of creators? How can we rethink music presentation to better reflect and resonate with different societies and communities of today? Is the modern curator obliged to take on social responsibility? What are the curatorial concepts and methodologies used in other art fields that the musical world could learn from?
Curatorship and curationism have become important buzzwords in the art world and world at large during the last decades. The classical and new music field, the ensembles and festivals involved are, too, moving towards more hybrid, collaborative projects and processes that involve other art forms that ask for new methodologies. Currently there are few educational programmes where to learn and discuss these questions in the music world, so emerging music curators and programmers must learn their trade as best they can through internships or by trial and error.
All four mentors will be present each a few days during the course to interact and mentor students, in addition to this Christos Carras, director of Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens and Johan Tallgren, Artistic Director of Time of Music will participate in some discussions, additional visiting lecturers will be announced when the festival programme is published in May.
The four mentors and visiting teachers will give presentations on their own work and roles, discuss different curatorial methodologies and lead workshops that target questions and challenges involved with programming and building projects for different institutions and audiences.
The course will include workshops, lectures, dialogues, debates and panels addressing first and foremost the artistic aspects and good practices on curating music and sound art of today. Discussions in class will cover topics as; historical background, challenges of public and private space, collaborative and participatory strategies , working with archives, challenges of modern identity-politics and personification , curatorship as activism, curating social change, diversity, gender and inclusivity to name a few. The students of the course will have a public discussion & presentation on the last day of the festival. The course will focus more on ethical and positional questions than the purely technical (fundraising and production) ones.
Fee: Course fee for active participants is 280 €. The fee includes participation in the course, open lessons and workshops, and free entrance to all of the festival concerts.
Sign up for the course here:
Registration for Time of Music Summer Academy 2020.
The teachers and mentors for the course are:
Julia Gerlach , Secretary of Music Section, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany
Vigdis Jakobsdottir , Artistic Director and CEO Reykjavik Arts Festival – Iceland
Tarek Atoui, Artist and Composer
Du Yun, Artist and Composer
Applying students should have some experience and traceable history on own work that links to curatorship. They should be prepared to present own work and discuss / share challenges they have experienced themselves in class . They should equally in the letter of interest lift up questions that they would want that would be discussed in class.
The “Curating Diversity” course is part of the Creative Europe funded network Sounds Now of which Time of Music is the Finnish partner.
