CURRICULUM

You’re ready to deepen your political commitments to an intermediate or advanced level.

You want to bring together the critical theory you’re reading about, the things you’re making, and the everyday things you’re experiencing. 

You’re craving space and time exclusively for and exclusively by racialised artists. If ya know, ya know. 

process

The unique process concentrates on 3 things:

1. the materials the artist uses in their practice
   
2. the critical theoretical texts the artist engages
   
3. the artist’s everyday politicized experiences being in the world

^OVERVIEW  4 artists will be selected to participate in each cycle. The Curriculum runs over a period of 5 consecutive days. Each day is guided with facilitation and structured studio time. The process is facilitated by Dr. Myriam Diatta, Black-Asian independent scholar and former educator at Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute in NYC. She will facilitate the workshop in partnership with a BIPoC coordinator. The workshop is hosted by Andromeda8220. Read ‘site’ section below for more.  

^PROCESS  Through the use of abstraction, participants will be able to ‘map’ how making, thinking, and being have mutually influenced each other in their past work. With open guidance, participants will be using the critical theory they’re already engaging with (via literature, interviews, documentaries, etc.) and mediums with which they are already fluent (i.e. clay, code, fiber, sound, etc.). Seen collectively, the group can share with each other the inner workings of what they do to deepen and develop langauge for what they find.
    The process includes settling into each other and the space, care practices, preparatory exercises, mapping, map-reading, and soft assessment criteria.

eligibility checklist

Participants must meet all 4 criteria.

You identify as a person who is racialised.

You have a creative practice that is spatial and/or material.

You work closely with a medium such as sculpture, performance, music, film, body movement, archiving, sound, internet, poetry, design, architecture, and/or more.

You deliberately engage with socio-political concepts at an intermediate or advanced level through your artistic practice.

These concepts may include, but are not limited to ecofeminism, Black critical thought, queerness, geo-political borderlands, abolition, disability, Afropessimism, and more.

You’re based in Sweden, Finland, Norway, or Denmark.

For now, the Centre is only able to accept and cover travel costs for artists who live in and who will be traveling to and from the regions named above. 

For this pilot phase, costs covered include:

^{PER DIEM}
1500 euro paid on completion of the Curriculum

^TRAVEL
Round-trip between Aarhus and a city in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, or Finland

^ACCOMODATION
In Aarhus, Denmark for 6 nights

Daily meals are not covered. Future open calls may not cover costs. The Curriculum is supported by Nordic Culture Fund. Participation of Norway-based artists is made possible by the Centre’s partner, ASSATA and Arts Council Norway.

site

Andromeda 8220
Gudrunsvej 78
8220 Aarhus G, Denmark 

The Curriculum is hosted at Andromeda8220—one of the Centre’s partners—in Gellerup (Aarhus), Denmark. Read about the historical, political, and cultural contexts of Andromeda 8220.

background

^APPROACH  The approach behind the Curriculum is based in Black critical thought, performance studies, and design. The Centre’s founder, Dr. Myriam Diatta, designed and established the Curriculum in 2021. She first developed the process by investigating the inner workings of her own critical creative practice as a case study. In 2023, Monash University's Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture (Melbourne, AU) nominated the research behind the Curriculum for their Doctoral Thesis Excellence award. Read more about the methodology here on Myriam’s website. 

^{SECTOR AND INDUSTRY}  Contemporary cultural institutions in Nordic countries have increasingly been representing a growing diversity of works by young artists who immerse themselves in critical and racialized perspectives. However, processes specifically to develop the critical artist and the criticality of their work—beyond lectures and discussions—are limited. Nordic Otherwise contributes to filling the gap by running its Curriculum.
        
^{ART, DESIGN, AND ARCHITECTURE}  Racialised creative practitioners engage with theoretical texts as an integrated part of their process. For example, American Artist (US) engages with Fred Moten’s book, In The Break: The Aesthetics Of The Black Radical Tradition; Dina El Kaisy Friemuth (DK) works with Ariella Asha Azoulay’s book, Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism. For the artist who contends with the socio-political condition, knowing, making, and being are engaged simultaneously. Each mutually influences the others at once. Nordic Otherwise seeks to develop strategies capable of supporting these critical processes.

Check out other must-know schools and courses that focus on (1) critical theory, (2) artistic practice, (3) centering QTBIPoC.
Note: The following are not affiliated with Nordic Otherwise. 

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