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Art school of the future
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Imagine the Art School of the Future

Call for real or utopian prospects for tomorrow’s school of art

Deadline: 16 April 2012


On the occasion of its 300th anniversary, the Brussels Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Art organises an international competition for art schools in and out of Europe under the auspices of ELIA.

Higher arts education is under pressure. Threatened by the current economic crisis and faced with a shifting institutional landscape, it has to live up to the challenge of new media and new technologies, and meet standards that are partly imposed upon it from a political level and the market, in an increasingly globalised context.
In recent years, the future of higher arts education has been hotly debated in publications, conferences and reflections. Art schools are changing, pedagogies are being reconsidered, the dominant models and ideals of higher arts education are subject to fundamental critique. This current crisis (if it is a crisis) creates a real or utopian space for new teaching standards, new ways of teaching art, new forms of belonging to a context, alternative institutional relationships, experimental projects, research, and new definitions of artistic success.

What does the art school of the future look like? How will it fit into the society as a teaching place, a place of artistic dynamics and of interaction with the environment and the history to which it belongs?
Each school of art embodies a heritage which it rebels against, in a constant re-invention of this heritage. This paradox is inherent in the exchange between generations and the education of tomorrow’s artistic talent. What, then, is a present-day artist? What could he/she become? According to which standards will the artist be educated and trained as an artist? How will the diversity of the profile and the mission of a school of Art which developed between pedagogy, ethic, research, manual and technological training and marketing evolve? Which interactions will take place with the environment surrounding the school? How to protect the school from the urge of consumer society towards mass production and merchandising if necessary? How can the quality demand be fulfilled while paying attention to the quantity demand and at the same time changing and breaking the rules?


Participants:


Open to all higher education institutes linked to artistic creation in all disciplines: visual art, cinema, architecture, design, dance, music, theatre, and so on. Teachers and students as well as young graduates can take part individually and research teams can take part as a group. The project can be linked to any subject, be interdisciplinary and be put forward by one or more institutions.
Schools must apply as a group. No individual application will be accepted. Any school can apply even if not part of ELIA.


Proposals should:


  • show evidence in the field of theoretical as well as practical artistic creation that the future of schools of Art needs to be discussed.
  • open a broad debate within art schools and give rise to concrete experimentation.
  • confront different subjects.
  • support an emerging generation of European and international creators and promote the work and dynamics of schools.

Proposals should be sent to future@elia-artschools.org before 16 April 2012. See the guidelines for submissions here.


How and according to which standards projects will be judged relevant:


A panel of international experts in the field of arts who represent in a balanced way all artistic disciplines make a selection among the projects put forward.
The relevance of a project will be assessed by paying attention to:

  • Its unique way of addressing the question of “the future school of art”
  • The conceptual or artistic vivacity and inventiveness of the project
  • The accuracy and professional aspect of the project and its presentation
  • The project’s potential to arouse the interest of a well-informed public and the interest of the location

Each school can submit a maximum of 3 propopsals.
A maximum of 10 to 15 projects will be selected.

The selection will be made on 15 May. Deadline for the submission of final projects is 1 October.

From these final projects, selected projects will be included in an exhibition and publication in Brussels, February 2013.

ELIA is committed to equal opportunity for all and welcomes submissions from all applicants, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, physical handicaps, ethnicity, religion and social, cultural and geographic backgrounds
       
 
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