SAAR 7-13.8.2022 Sweden

August 7, 2022 - August 13, 2022

Summer Academy for Artistic Research

Campus Steneby, Dals Långed

Relationships with the extant knowledges and practices

Look at DRAFT SCHEDULE (June 2022)

The summer academy provides a supportive setting where artist-researchers (PhD candidates, Doctoral candidates or Research fellows in artistic research) from all fields collaborate, present their on-going artistic work and research and receive feedback from experienced tutors and peers from leading academic art institutions. The summer academy aims to reflect the international diversity and scope of artistic research and to provide a stimulating intellectual environment. It seeks to clarify, discuss and develop further emerging themes and issues arising out of the individual fellowship projects of the participants within the framework of artistic research.

This year the location for the event will be the internationally renowned Campus Steneby, a creative cultural and educational environment in Dals Långed and a beautiful location in the Swedish summer countryside. The host for SAAR 2022 is the University of Gothenburg, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts.

Read more about Campus Steneby

Under the heading “Relationships with the extant knowledges and practices” the 2022 summer academy will take as its focus the challenge for artist-researchers to disclose the context(s) of existing knowledge-practice relevant to their own projects. We will collectively unfold the questions of what existing artistic knowledge practices matter for our work: With respect to what different existing practices-and-knowledges does our research proposes a ‘contribution’, an ‘intervention’ or some other mode of being-in-relation-with?

We propose a variety of questions and a variety of strategies to open up a space of encounter, exchange, excursus and – we hope – exhilaration!

* For our different artistic research projects, how may we identify and recognize relevant existing knowledges and practices?
* For our different artistic research projects, how can we disclose and share what is already accomplished within our different artistic fields and knowledge practices?
* For our different research tasks and process, how might the disclosure of existing knowledge-practice be approached within the terms of different practices and not exclusively or even primarily as a discursive or descriptive task? What might it mean to disclose what is already known?
* For our artistic research processes, how can we be in relationship with something of the vastness of the already known/knowing, already done/doing, already said/saying, already shared/sharing – but not overwhelmed by this vastness?
* Toward where, and toward what, are we bringing our artistic research insights and gifts of knowing?

It is our aim that through forms of sharing and co-production of food together that we can get at something of the lived artistic practices of knowledge sharing and the fundamentally communal nature of artistic – indeed of all – knowledge practices. The week long intensive will have a variety of formats and activities to create generative spaces for different modes of showing, telling, doing, unpacking, reconstructing, re-telling, re-doing, and rethinking.

The aim of the week is to discuss and explore the participants’ research projects in depth within the developing discourses of art practice and research, and with respect to this question of the already known. This happens through different forms of co-supervision, intensive conversation, and walking-listening-prepping-cooking-eating-tasting-sharing. SAAR is each year based on the participants' projects, and the summer academy activities are centred around their projects/practices, as well as questions/thoughts generated by the specific knowledge-practice contexts of these projects and the unique encounters possible in this special place. Supervisors from different fields will be there to take part in the discussions and reflect/co-imagine with the participants.

Key Dates

25.4.2022 Deadline for confirming who the SAAR participants are from each institution

25.5.2022 Deadline for bios, research descriptions and information about food preferences /needs etc.

25.6.2022 Full programme published including full participant list, bios, research descriptions, and detailed schedule of activities.

Organisation

The SAAR network is coordinated by Uniarts Helsinki and governed by a joint Nordic Steering Group. This year, in collaboration with the SAAR Steering Group, Maria Bania and Mick Wilson together with Anna Frisk (the senior research administrator at Hdk-Valand) will develop the programme. Below we have described each activity/format used in the schedule so that you know what to expect. SAAR 2022 is based on the participants' projects and everything is centred around the discussion of the projects wider contexts of meaningful relation to extant knowledges and practices.

Bios and Research Abstracts

Before the summer all participants – supervisors and doctoral researchers – are requested to send in short bios (300 words maximum*) and short presentations (abstracts – another 300 words maximum*) describing their doctoral research project (for doctoral researchers, “fellows”) OR current research interests/projects (for the supervisors) (another 300 words maximun). Please include links to any online sources that are relevant to your research.

These presentations will be published on-line in advance of the meetiung. Deadline for receiving texts is Wednesday 25.5.2022, email to xwimic@gu.se, with “SAAR 2022” in the message header.

These will be published on the website, so that we can read them before the start of the week. We hope this will help you prepare, but the real work will happen "live" during the week. Images related to the work may also be shared (jpegs, 72 dpi, maximum 1000 pixels wide) if you wish.

A big part of our process will be the collective preparing and sharing of evening meals as part of a process of collaborative enquiry. More information about this aspect of the programme will be posted shortly. We would ask that participants signal clearly in advance food needs/ food preferences / allergenic issues: meat, dairy, vegetarian, vegan, gluten, etc. This can be included in the same email that includes your Bio and your Research description.

Note, because of the programme structure, these advance materials are essential. If you do not send this material in advance, it will not be possible to participate meaningfully in the encounter.

Note: If the bio text, or the research description text, is longer than 300 words, we will just use the first 300 words so as to avoid creating extra work for everyone.

Note: Unfortunately, if there is no information in the email about food preferences etc, we will not be able to accommodate these on site, and the standard omnivore arrangements will apply.

Opening presentations

On the first day the 27 or so participants in the summer school (doctoral researchers and supervisors) will each present a very brief introduction. However, we will not introduce our own work, but we will each have the task of introducing one of the other participant’s work. In June 2022, several weeks before the summer school starts, each a participant will be assigned the task of preparing a 5-minute introduction to the work of one of the other participants. The assignment will be based on mixing across disciplines, and mixing across different institutional and national contexts as much as possible.

There will be 5 minutes to present the assigned other participant’s work, and 5 minutes dialogue with the group, including an opportunity for the participant whose work that is being presented to clarify and respond to any issues questions raised.

The purpose of this exercise is to familiarise ourselves with each other’s practices; to consider the challenges of communication in research processes and communities; to experiment a little with the rules of authorship and ownership in the often highly individualised culture of doctoral work; and to have a playful form of encounter where we are already entangled a little in each other’s work when we meet.

It is essential to share your material and to prepare beforehand to make for a good encounter.

Group discussions/workshops

An important format in the summer academy are the parallel group discussions where each fellow hosts a session of approximately 1 hour, introducing and exploring a particular topic or practice or content that is part of the existing practice-knowledge context for their research. There will be 4-5 groups at the time and 5 people in each group, including a supervisor.

In order to open his/her group discussion the fellow should lead a 5-10 minutes "action", which is then followed by an open conversation. The action is meant to be an activity that serves to initiate the group’s work. It could be a physical action; playing audio; producing sound ‘live’; giving instruction to the participants; trying out something with the participants; closely looking at an example of practice (that might be shared beforehand); reading text (that might be shared beforehand also); introducing an issue or problem that they face in disclosing their research context or what has already been accomplished in their project area by others; showing visual material or other material etc. But it should somehow "open a window" towards understanding something of the already existing knowledge and practice with respect to which the participant’s research has some relationship and that the participant wishes to discuss in the session.

Each fellow will host 1-2 such group discussions during the week. These should be quite improvised, and not too prepared, in order for us to dive into where ever in the process the fellow is at the moments, but it might be a good idea to prepare and think through possible scenarios. At the beginning of the week, we will decide when each research fellow initiates a group discussion/workshop, and we will seek to have an equal distribution of participants and supervisors across the groups.

Morning opening sessions

Each morning from 09:00-09:20 we will start with a simple full group encounter after breakfast to spend some time together, reflect on the day ahead. There might be physical activity involved in this. Particpants are welcome to propose these during the week.

Sum up

The summing up- sessions will be fairly short, but here the groups can report particular issues they have discussed. We will plan the day ahead, and make sure all practicalities are on track.

Individual supervision

The research fellows/candidates will have the possibility to sign up for individual supervision meetings with supervisors. This will be done by a simple sign-up sheet posted at the end of the first day.

Presentations at the end of the week

We will end the week with the fellows giving a presentation engaging their project, in two (or more) separate groups.

Topics and formats are up to the fellow, according to what has come up or what they have realized in relation their project during the week: what has been clarified, what do they want to continue with, what is still unclear etc. It is intended as part of the experimentation with/within the project. The formats of the presentations can vary and the fellows can decide how to dispose the time. We encourage the candidates to experiment with the format of presentation or to collaborate between themselves. We will split the group in two (or more based on the experience of the week itself) for the final presentations.

Other activities, variation, breaks, time keeping etc.:

In order to vary the activities, we will encourage the research fellows to use all the spaces, included the outdoor space, during the group discussions. We will have breaks that are substantial, to make sure they become real breaks. As the week will be intensive, it will important that we keep time. We will make this clear from the beginning, and we will take turns in being the time keepers, "strict but with good humour".

There will be a social moments on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. More details shortly.

Practicalities - logistics

Accommodation

We will have information shortly on accommodations, which are simple single room on-site residences, often used for such forms of summer school. These are single rooms

At 16:30 Sunday 7.8.2022, a bus will bring all participants from Gothenburg Central Station to Campus Steneby – which is approximately 2 or 2,5 hours drive. Shortly after arrival at Campus Steneby we will have an evening meal together prepared by an invited artist who works with food as a creative research practice.

Note: Central Station is approximately 30-35 minutes from Landvetter Airport by taxi or the regular airport bus.

At 10:00 Saturday 13.8.2022, a bus will bring all participants from Campus Steneby to Gothenburg Central Station (arriving at approximately 12:30).

Other travel to and from Gothenburg must be additionally covered by the institutions / your local programme.