European Academy of Participation International Conference

Be Part of the Conversation!

The European Academy of Participation (EAP) brings together ten higher education and arts & culture organisations from all over Europe. EAP sets out to make a contribution to a more inclusive Europe, in which people live together in mutual respect of their differences. Participatory practice in art and culture is a central tool to involve communities in a positive process of constructing a shared cultural space.

The conference will include presentations and workshops to engage creative producers, cultural practitioners, artists, academics, educators, arts & culture organisations and higher education institutions in a critical dialogue and a rich exchange. A draft discussion document will form the basis of the interactive sessions. This benchmark document adopts the Tuning Educational Structures in Europe methodology and will be validated and published for the use of educators and practitioners. This includes a qualifications framework and acknowledges the already existing variety of participatory approaches in the humanities and the arts.

This two-day conference will:

1. Present and discuss a benchmark Tuning Document for Participatory Practice in art and culture including a graduate profile Creative Producer. Input by delegates will be taken into account before the final publication.
2. Present and discuss an exemplary Low Residency Course Module Creative Producer by Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UAL.

The ambition of EAP is to tap into the existing potential of higher education and the unique and hard won endeavours of creative projects and organizations scattered across Europe that are engaging the public as active agents in their work. Through their cross-fertilisation both sectors impact on the diversifying societies of Europe, capitalizing on participatory practice in the arts.

Partners

Goethe-Institut, Munich, Germany; Castrum Peregrini, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; ACERT, Tondela, Portugal; Avrupa Kultur Dernegi, Istanbul, Turkey; National University of the Arts Bucharest, Romania; Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, UK; University of Marseille, France; Universidad de la Iglesia de Deusto, Bilbao, Spain; ELIA The European League of Institutes of the Arts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Create, Dublin, Ireland.

Biographies

Dave Beech

Dave Beech is Professor of Art at Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg. He is an artist in the collective Freee (with Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan), as well as a writer and curator. His work had been exhibited at the Istanbul Biennial and the Liverpool Biennial as well as BAK, Utrecht, Wysing Arts, Cambridge, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, the ICA, London, Centro Cultural, Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain, the Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, International Project Space, Birmingham, and 1000000mph Gallery, London. He is the author of Art and Value: Art’s Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical and Marxist Economics, Brill 2015.

He has written widely on the politics of art, including The Philistine Controversy (Verso, 2002, co-authored with John Roberts) and Art and Text (Blackdog Books, 2011).

He is a founding co-editor of the journal Art and the Public Sphere (Intellect Publishing, from 2011). He also curated the exhibition We Are Grammar at the Pratt Institute, New York 2011 (co-curator Paul O’Neill) and edited a special edition of Third Text (“Art, Politics, Resistance?”,Vol 16, Issue 4, No 6).

Michelle Browne

Michelle Browne is an artist and curator based in Dublin. She studied Sculpture at NCAD and has a Masters in Art Praxis from the Dutch Art Institute. Her work encompasses a diverse range of media, including live performance, public intervention, video, sculpture and collaboration. She often works site specifically developing ideas and forms through research that explores the intrinsic characteristics of a place, and considers how an action or process-based work can be inserted into this particular location, to challenge or throw into question its existing condition. Frequently the work is made in collaboration with an existing ‘community’ or with a group temporarily formed around a particular issue or interest. Browne’s collaborative art practice is primarily concerned with how we use public space.

In 2013 she presented Dublin’s Fare City, working with Dublin taxi drivers for IETM at Project Arts Centre. She collaborated with mothers of young children, presenting work for IMMA’s Open Studio programme. Through her practice she has also worked with cycle couriers, mechanical and software engineers, business entreprenuers and stock brokers, Architects and urban planners, choirs, urban teenagers, and traditional irish musicians.

Her recent research looks at the legacy of performative and socially engaged works, considering the role of musuem collections in the preservation of these forms of art practice. The work looks at efforts by institutions such as the Van Abbemuseum in Holland to collect socially engage art though the Arte Util Archive.

Browne has also curated a number of exhibitions that draw on participative and collaborative practices including Vital Signs Arts & Health in Context for The Arts Council and Create in 2009 to Tulca Season on Visual Art in Galway in 2010. From 2011-2013 she was Artist Advisor to the Dublin City Council Grafton Street Design Team and is currently lecturer in the Department of Sculpture and Expanded Practice at NCAD.

She has performed and exhibited both nationally and internationally most recently taking part in My Brilliant Friend, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; Border Crossings, Galway Arts Centre and SASA Gallery, Adelaide, Australia; Future Histories at Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin; and Forecast, Kilkenny with Bring your Own Chair a public participative event in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny.

Cosmina Goagea

Cosmina Goagea is architect and curator, program director of Zeppelin platform of communication and action. Her research and curatorial practice is focused on the relations between architecture and the social sphere. Consequently, she is interested in areas linked to urban activism, bottom-up city-making, public space activation, cultural and social entrepreneurship, situation design, art as urban practice. Lecturer at the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest – UAUIM (1999 – 2004). Curator for the Biennial of Architecture in Bucharest – BAB (between 2004 –2010) and Deputy-Commissioner in 2004 for the Romanian pavilion in Venice Biennale. Co-author of “Remix. Fragments of a country” exhibition in Romanian pavilion for the Venice Biennale 2006. Founding member of Zeppelin association (2008).

Currently involved in editorial research, exhibitions, placemaking projects and urban interventions in public spaces, both in Romania and internationally:

• Project director and editor of Zeppelin magazine / 142 issues to date
• Co-author of “Actopolis. The Art of Action” project organised by the Goethe-Institut and Urbane Künste Ruhr / 2015 – 2017
• Team member of “New Europe. Cities in Transition” project initiated by Pakhuis de Zwijger (NL) / 2015 – 2016
• Curator for “Halele Carol” project initiated by Zeppelin in partnership with USF Bergen (NO) / 2014 – 2016
• Coordinator and co-author of “Connected. Things about future, cities and people” project initiated by Zeppelin in collaboration with NUDA (NO), Fargfabriken (SE), Archis (NL), Eurodite (RO) / 2013 – 2016

Merlijn Twaalfhoven

Composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven (1976, The Netherlands) connects styles, cultures but first of all people. He worked with symphony orchestras, choirs and classical soloists as well as rock bands, folk singers, DJs, dance and theatre.

With a passion for spectacular monumental locations (a shipyard, old factory, on rooftops, in churches or a submarine), he includes non western music traditions (Japanese, Arabic, Indian, Scandinavian) and designs events for places with political and social tension. He created innovative projects in refugee camps, a Roma ghetto and across dividing lines in Cyprus, Palestine and Syria, involving children, the local communities and connecting professional and amateur musicians.

Currently he is working on audience engagement and interactive concerts in the world of classical music. He is building The Resonance Lab, a network of innovative singers and choirs, linking vocal music to social and environmental issues. With A Sharing Academy and The Citizen Artist Incubator, he develops practical methods for musicians and other artists to engage more directly in society.

He received an UNESCO award and presented his vision on the role of the artist in society at the Aspen Institute in Washington, the EU Forum in Brussels, TEDx Amsterdam and at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Merlijn Twaalfhoven strives for a world without boundary between art and society. His goal is to revive the creative and artistic potential in everyone, resulting in new meaningful connections and understanding between people.