Workshop with Prof. Dave Beech and Prof. Mick Wilson at Bard College campus Berlin, students from art & politics course, from Bard CCS, and from De Appel Curatorial Programme2018. Photo: Kjell Caminha

2023 Introduction Summer Course

The Introduction to Contemporary Arts and Politics (15ECTS) (Code: VFSPOL) course at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg is a summer course that has been based on a combination of online presentations and seminars between early June and late August. For the 2023 course there will be approximately twenty-two online sessions.

This international course, delivered in English, introduces key political themes in relation to contemporary art practices, theories and institutions. It is informed by ongoing research and operates as a summer-long collaborative enquiry.

On this page you will find information on:

• 2023 Course Team
• More about the course content
• Last year's content as guideline
• Draft Course Schedule for 2022
• About previous editions of the course

2023 Course Team

This year the teaching team comprises: Nkule Mabaso and Thiago de Paula Souza.

More about the course content

Topics covered in the course include competing accounts of the political/politics; different readings of the emergence of the aesthetic within colonial-modernity; the nature of exhibition; the geopolitics of the art world's globalism(s); feminism and the question of eurocentrism; ecological practices and climate change responses; the political imaginary; the shift from institutional critique to infrastructural activism; the tensions between 'politics of representation' and 'post-representational' thinking; the question of the subject; modes of collectivity; and many other key themes.

The course offers an introduction to a wide range of materials and practices. It is driven by a research agenda, rather than a resolved position. The course attempts to recast the question "what are the relationships between art and politics?" into an enquiry about how the two terms, taken in conjunction, may enable an interrogation of how they each are enacted as fundamentally contested categories.

A key issue considered is the variety of ways in which a separation and distinction between "art" and "politics" has been historically produced and reproduced.  The presumption of the "and" that bridges between the two terms, also marks a division which it is necessary to interrogate. Early in the course there is a basic consideration of the different ways in which the domain of the enquiry is constructed.

Acknowledging the complex field of theoretical, critical and activist positions that operate in the interaction/conjunction of practices of art and practices of the political, the course takes a partial survey approach, and does not claim to be comprehensive, but does seek to achieve breadth. The course interrogates the different claims for contemporary art's political agency and political saliency, rather than accepting these at face value.

The course is also closely informed by the research activities of HDK-Valand and the work of the platforms: L'Internationale Online,  PARSE Journal of Artistic Research, and PARSE partnerships with Afterall Books: Exhibition Histories and VECTOR Studio, Iasi

Detailed schedule of course content (lecture topics, seminars and workshops) and the reading list for 2022 will be posted in April 2023.

Last year's content as guideline

You can view last year's material here as a general indication of the course orientation

Review on last day of Berlin workshop, 2018. Photo: Kjell Caminha.

Draft Course Schedule 2022

Times are CET (Swedish time).

W  7 June 13:00-18:00
Th 8 June 13:00-18:00

Tu 13 June 13:00-18:00
W  14 June 13:00-18:00
Fr 15 June 13:00-18:00

Tu 20 June 13:00-18:00
W  21 June 13:00-18:00
Fr 22 June 13:00-18:00

Tu 4 July 13:00-18:00  
W  5 July 13:00-18:00
Th 6 July 13:00-18:00

Tu 11 July 13:00-18:00 
W  12 July 13:00-18:00
Th 13 July 13:00-18:00

Tu 18 July 13:00-18:00 
W  19 July 13:00-18:00
Th 20 July 13:00-18:00

Tu 25 July 13:00-18:00 
W  26 July 13:00-18:00
Th 27 July 13:00-18:00

Tu 22 August 16:00-18:00
W  23 August 16:00-18:00

About previous editions of the course

Participants are normally expected to actively engage online, and to attend at least one meet-up session if feasible, and more of desired. Typically there are three face-to-face sessions opportunities, each in a different city. In 2022 these are in Kassel, Berlin and Gothenburg. In 2021 this was waived because of covid19 disruptions. In 2020 the cities nominated are Bucharest. (June) Dublin (August) and Gothenburg (August). In 2019 the cities nominated were Stockholm (June) Venice (July) and Gothenburg (August). In 2018 the cities nominated were Berlin (June) London (June) and Gothenburg (August). We typically collaborate with different partners in each city to develop an interesting and challenging programme of activities at each intensive. 

In previous years speakers at collaborative events have included: Cătălin Gheorghe (2021), Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić (2021), Vladimir Us (2021), Vasyl Cherepanyn (2021), Paul O'Neill (2020), Anselm Franke (2020), Steven Henry Madoff (2020), QAYYEM (2020), Haseeb Ahmed (2019), Georgina Jackson (2019), Kathrin Böhm (London, 2018), Prem Krishnamurthy & Emily Smith (Berlin, 2018), Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Berlin, 2018), and Paul B. Preciado (Berlin, 2018).

Application via www.universityadmissions.se.  (for international applicants) and via www.antagning.se. (for Swedish applicants).