Vocabularies for Counter-Histories

About

This course is part of the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts's 2020 programme.

Course leader

Sammy Baloji and Lotte Arndt

Target group

Open to anyone interested in transdisciplinary processes, counter-hegemonic narratives and artistic research.

Course aim

This course asks how, in times of political repression, artistic praxis can develop narratives to call into question monolithic narratives and unsettle their nationalist, colonial and gendered character. We are interested in artistic strategies that take their approach from archives, work with little-noticed protagonists or shift the perspective on some event believed to be well known. We will examine the possibilities of counter-hegemonic forms and try to build connections between geographically distant places and their often invisible interactions.

Artists, writers and curators are welcome to join across disciplinary lines in exploring the collaborative practices that can open the path to alternative scenarios, experimenting with speculative gestures, narrative fabulation and collage or montage. The border situation of a town and the properties of a material may interest us as much as an image, an archival document, a verbal testimony, a monument or an art collection.

The two-week course will be organised as active artistic or curatorial research by participants, including collective (discussions, visits, commented readings and film screenings, guest lecturers) and individual (research, exchange with teachers) components. On the basis of our respective practices (both separate and collaborative) as artist and theorist, we would like to accompany participants in their specific research.

Fee info