On first year, in Tallinn and Vilnius, the course was titled Self-Organising in Art and in Copenhagen Organizing, Navigation and Operational Space. On second year, in Estonia, the course was called Creative Industries, in Lithuania, Self-Organising in Art, and in Denmark, Udenom/Around. During the period 2015-2017 we had 101 participants: 54 in Vilnius, 25 in Tallinn, and 22 in Copenhagen.
The elective course, second year
In Estonia, the course was called Creative Industries. The course offered three ECTS credits, and was compulsory for second-year MA students of Fine Arts (painting, printmaking, installation and sculpture, scenography, animation). The course took place in the autumn semester with 17 participants.
In Lithuania, the course was called Self-Organising in Art and offered three ECTS credits. It was an elective course for BA and MA students in Fine Arts and Cultural Management, held in the autumn semester with 28 participants.
In Denmark, the course was called Udenom/Around (two ECTS credits) and had 14 students from Fine Arts (12 MFA, one BFA, and one alumna who was a collaborative partner of one participating student).
MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE COURSES
Vilnius Academy of Arts used this draft https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mJvWv2sQny4ekU9RtpkXDWq-78Qu5R2IPpptGD690Cw/edit – gid=0 sent before the course. They had 28 Fine Arts students, both BA and MA, including cultural managers who worked in larger groups. The course was led by Elena Grudzinskaitė, Rasa Kavaliauskaitė, and Daina Pupkevičiūtė. On the first year the course got a great feedback from the students, so there was no need to change the content of the course for the second year.
During the courses, lectures were conducted on a variety of topics important for working in the arts, as well as aspects of self-organisation and the local art field. All this knowledge had to be used in the development of students’ personal projects that combined a practical action plan and an idea plan. Projects did not have to be realized during the course, but it was required they be thought through in detail. Project progress was discussed in seminars and presented at the final meeting.
Seminars: Students presented their interests in self-organising connected to their artistic practices, discussed their thoughts in seminars, gathered material, made sketches, wrote idea plans, and considered practical aspects of realizing their projects (location, permissions, funding, technical support, communication, etc.).
The Estonian Academy of Arts took the same draft for the first year and on the second it emerged with a course led by Elin Kard (gallerist for two Estonian Artists’ Association galleries, Hobusepea and Draakoni, and Vice President of the Estonian Artists’ Association), and it became a compulsory entrepreneurship course for the MA level. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qQSTYYf1xQAVo_BrI1r2b5HXLtNiS2AvI0skmbSv39c/edit?usp=sharing
Estonia had fourteen students and the course topics were same as in Vilnius Academy of Arts. Great emphasis was on planning personal budgets, requesting funds from the Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonia’s most-used method of funding artistic activities. Progress of the projects was discussed personally with the course leader and presented to her only.
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Arts
First year, 14 meetings of 3 hours each, running from early January to late-June. The course took the form of a working group, and consisted of a mixture of short presentations, readings, site- visits and conversations. Students’ own practices were a central part running through the entire course. They were asked to bring a current or new project, or their practice at large. The key thing was that they brought something they wanted to share and work with for the duration of the course. There was no demand beyond that of figuring out ways of bringing parts of their practice into the collective setting.
The overall aim of the course was to discuss a more differentiated and open way of thinking and practicing art. Students were asked to write a resume, an artist statement, funding applications, etc. That is, ways of relating and engaging with the art world and beyond. In full, this is a question of what kind of life one wants as an artist. This way of thinking artistic practices, can be called systemic, organizational and structural. When talking of how one might relate ones practice to new entities, it reflects back on ones understanding of what ones practice is or can be, what makes it distinct, from other modes of existence, what makes artistic practice distinct from other practices. The course was led by David Hilmer Rex (Diakron platform-studio)
The course plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p4RxwMs6v3RWytuTycomwVze2YLj3rncBKztQIUsO_A/edit
Second year, also 13 meetings of three to six hours each, depending on the topic and the activites (visiting museums, galleries, artist studios). The course was a low-practice course about the unavoidable crust that forms around one’s art production when one graduates from the academy. The course consisted of mapping the art world, project initiations, writing applications, visiting the Danish Art Council, budgets and financing, visiting three galleries, and reviewing CVs and portfolios. Parallel to the theoretical part, everyone started to develop their own personal projects and presented them in Nida (Lithuania) where we had our networking and presentation event. The course was led by Ditte Soria and Anna Margrethe Pedersen (Years exhibition space).
The course plan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4TjO0nsiGzybmhocWM2WFU1U1E/view?usp=sharing
The project is funded by Nordplus Horizontal