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International workshop for Art Academies

OPEN SPACE in an intensive nine day workshop that brings together up to 40 students from 8 Art Academies around the world to share their views and visions on the current chances and challenges of contemporary art. The task is to generate a platform for the students to relate to and reflect with how they want to and need to take part in the production of knowledge within this very heterogenic field. For this, documenta 12 provides a perfect setting. The idea is to root, reflect and respond with the works and projects at display in order to create a critical but constructive view on the opportunities and demands of working as an artist ? both in individual and collective senses.
Departing from the central themes of documenta 12, the focus is on the very core questions of our practices, for example, what does it mean to be an artist, how do we define quality in contemporary art, and how can we achieve a meaningful critical position within contemporary art. The main aim is to think through ways of how to become more than just a consumer of visual communication and effects, and to become something else, something more ? something that can be labelled as an empowered citizen. Thus, a bumpy road from the trendy spectacles towards the notions and nuances of how art is available and present in our daily sites and situations.

The program is based on a structure of daily meetings for the whole group both in the morning and in the late afternoon. For the substance of the discussions, participating students are asked (with the help of professors) to articulate and to address important issues and themes ? bringing in presentations, guests and arguments. Thus, it is the students who shape and make the agenda. Each day has a specific main theme as starting point. During the last days, students are expected to work in smaller groups (up to 8 people) and to collaborate on final statements, presentations or performances as a critical/personal response of their experience within the workshop and documenta 12.
Before OPEN SPACE starts, each institution will prepare their selected students on base of a shared reading list.