On 1st-3rd of April will be PhD Seminar “Symposium as Exposition: Knowing Through Art & Design” at Vilnius Academy of Arts.

The seminar will gather artists & designers enrolled in doctoral programmes at Baltic and Nordic academies to present and discuss the common issues of their artistic research and modes of its presentation. This seminar is learning from Nida Doctoral School and other initiatives like Research Pavilion in Venice Biennale where artists & designers have exposed their practices as research and tried to experiment with the enhanced and sited modes of presentation. We propose to treat artistic practice as research and ask you to think of how your practice relates to your mode of presentation. Moreover, we would like to discuss different kinds of knowing and knowledge traversing your material practices and things. How one witness artistic practice as inherently epistemic? Could you discuss about your art work/process as epistemic thing? If possible, we ask to bring an artefact from your artistic research in order to make a temporal material and/or performative exposition.

The seminar will provide both friendly and critical platform to discuss the context and conditions when art or design work/process could be treated as research. Doctoral researchers will get feedback from their fellows as well as from experienced tutors. We estimate that around 15-20 researchers will share their projects.

Part of the seminar will happen in Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) because some of doctoral researchers from VDA are showing their work there as part of the larger exhibition “Head With Many Thoughts”.

Vilnius Academy of Arts runs practice-based doctoral programme for artists & designers since 2011. At the moment around 40 fellows are enrolled in it.

P.S. For selected candidates a concise reading list will be provided.

Teaching Period: 1st-3rd April, 2020
Host: Doctoral Programme of Vilnius Academy of Arts (VDA)
Partnership with Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius
Tutors: Prof. dr. Mika Elo, Prof. Dr. Marquard Smith, researcher Julie Harboe, Assoc. Prof. Vytautas Michelkevičius and other supervisors from VDA
ETCS: 2
Number of available places for KUNO students: 6
Level: PhD

Application deadline: February 29th, 2020
How to apply: by e-mail short research project abstract, CV/portfolio and indication of presentation mode (performance/screening/talk/powerpoint/walk…) to vytautas.michelkevicius@vda.lt

Bios of Tutors:

Dr Mika Elo, Professor of artistic research at the Academy of Fine Arts (University of the Arts Helsinki); curator, visual artist and researcher; co-convenor of Research Pavilion in Venice Biennale 2019.

Julie Harboe¸ art historian and critic, curator, transdisciplinary researcher, Future Laboratory CreaLab, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Switzerland).

Dr Vytautas Michelkevičius, Assoc. Prof. at the Vilnius Academy of Arts; Head of Photography and Media Department and Doctoral Programme in Fine Art; researcher and curator of artistic research projects in various contexts, including the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (featuring Dainius Liškevičius’ ‘Museum’); recent books “Mapping Artistic Research. Towards Diagrammatic Knowing” (2018), “Atlas of Diagrammatic Imagination” (2019, together with L. Michelkevičė).

Dr Marquard Smith, Programme Leader, MA Museums & Galleries in Education, University College London (UCL); Professor of Artistic Research, Vilnius Academy of Arts; Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Visual Culture; Board Member, Live Art Development Agency & Arts Catalyst. 

More about the Doctoral Programme of Vilnius Academy of Art

Preliminary Programe:

April 1st Wed

13.00-14.00 Welcome lunch

14.00-14.15 Intro to the seminar and its goals

14.00.14.15-15.30 First session of presentations

15.30-16.00 Coffee break

16.00-17.30 Second session of presentations
(guided walk through researchers’ works exposed in CAC)

17.30-18.30 Time for individual walk through the exhibition in CAC (~2000 sq.m.)

18.30 – Dinner with fellows and tutors

April 2nd Thu

10.00-11.15 Third session of presentations

11.15-11.30 Coffee break

11.30-13.00 Fourth session of presentations

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 Fifth session of presentations

15.30-16.00 Coffee break

16.00-17.30 Sixth session of presentations

17.30-19.00 Time for snack

19.00-21.00 Performative presentation night (Seventh session)

Dinner/Party with fellows and tutors

April 3rd Fri

11.00-12.00 Sum up of the sessions and conclusions

12.00-13.00 Goodbye lunch

Departures and free time to explore thriving Vilnius art scene.