Pool 1: Art & Politics: October School 2021 

Where do we stand?
Cosmopolitical turbulences in artistic contextualization
Nummer und TypMFA-MFA-Po00.21H.001 / Moduldurchführung
ModulPool: 
VeranstalterDepartement Fine Arts
LeitungChristoph Schenker, Franz Krähenbühl, Yvonne Wilhelm
Anzahl Teilnehmendemaximal 7
ECTS3 Credits
VoraussetzungenCourse language: English
LehrformSeminar
ZielgruppenMA Fine Arts students
Open for exchange students
Lernziele / Kompetenzen• gain of inter- and transcultural competences
• understanding for alternative fields-, practices, and forms of knowledge
• critical reflection on historical and actual universalism in art and society
InhalteHow can we, despite our manifold cultural, economic, political, social differences, talk globally about common ideas, values, conceptions and address urgent intercultural challenges together? The Eurocentric concept of the universal idea, the concept of equality and humanity is based on the local canon of values of a bourgeois education and has been inscribed and perpetuated in art and science over centuries. The extremely successfully exported Western models of knowledge and thought, which transcend colonial structures and epochs, prevent a cosmopolitanism as envisioned by the historian and political philosopher Achille Mbembe, which is based on a world of differences and diversity. Current examples in the arts represent new collaborative practices for future coexistence and ways of thinking based on shared knowledge. These include the transdisciplinary Indonesian collective Ruangrupa, focused on alternative and sustainable knowledge, which has been entrusted with the direction of the next documenta, and the Turner Prize-nominated artist group Gentle/Radical, who is committed to social change through their art. Qualities that Martha Nussbaum described as the three cosmopolitan skills: 1. critical self-examination and reflection, 2. identification with a global human community, and 3. narrative imagination - or the ability to imagine across cultural differences. In this seminar we want to sharpen our thinking, grind against familiar as well as new positions, and test insights in field research and with case studies in the city of Zurich and its public sphere. We will enter into close exchange with students from October School's partner universities (SNU Delhi; PUCE, Quito; UJ Johannesburg, UNAM Mexico City). Together we explore, test and challenge local and internationally viable counter-concepts to the supposed universal universality with an artistic practical approach.

About the teachers:

Christoph Schenker is Professor at the DFA and head of the Institute for Contemporary Art Research. He is involved with contemporary public art, and in this respect he works with artists worldwide. See: https://www.draftprojects.info

Franz Krähenbühl (Bern and Zurich) studied art history at University of Bern and art and mediation at Lucerne University of the Arts. At the Institut for Contemporary Art Research (IFCAR) at the Department of Fine Arts at Zurcher University of the Arts (DKM/ZHdK) he develops and curates InOctober, an international network on Contemporary Public Art with several aligned partner universities. As an academic he works at F+F School for Art and Design Zurich, at Schule für Gestaltung Bern, and at University of the Arts Bern. He’s the co-funder of transform.bz. As independent curator he has realized a variety of exhibitions and projects, and has run the Shedhalle Zurich. Further he’s member of the board for art in public spheres at the city of Bern, and writers and critic.

Yvonne Wilhelm is an artist (part of the artist duo knowbotiq) and professor, teaching at the ZHdK MFA, who has been experimenting with forms and medialities of social imaginaries, visual regimes, and epistemic disobedience, with a certain focus on queer-feminist and post-/decolonial aspects. Her practical focus is on post-digital time-based formats, installative-performative settings, and research-led art.
Bibliographie / LiteraturWill be handed out during the course.
Leistungsnachweis / TestatanforderungMandatory attendance (minimum 80%); active participation
TermineTime: 10:00 - 18:00 o'clock

CW 44: 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 November
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