Click on one of the subjects in the below table to get more information about the different symposia and discipline sessions during our 10th biennial.

Symposia	Discipline Sessions
General information	General information
Talkin' loud and saying something?	Architecture
2010: Standards not standarisation	Dance
Who is responsible?	Design
The arts as dialogue?	Fashion
What impact?	Film
	Fine Art
	International Relations
	Music
	Opera & Musical Theatre
	Theatre

The symposia at this year’s conference will take place on Thursday morning from 11h30-13h00 and Friday morning from 9h30-13h00. You may choose one symposium per day. You will note that all symposia topics are held on both days. Please be aware that these are separate sessions with separate agendas, not repeat sessions. Each symposium will facilitate a discussion with the delegates on that symposium’s topic.
The symposium sessions during the conference are organised in part by and reflect discussions held within artesnet.europe, the Erasmus Network for Higher Arts Education in Europe, which ELIA coordinates with support from the European Union’s ERASMUS Life Long Learning Programme.

1. TALKIN’ LOUD AND SAYING SOMETHING?
Four Perspectives of Artistic Research

Organised by Johan Öberg, University of Gothenburg

Academy- and university-based research in and through the arts is growing in importance and diversity. As a relatively young form of artistic and scholarly practice, it has the promise of opening up new perspectives for artistic work, knowledge production and critical discourse.
Artistic research is an activity in the making. It needs to develop its own unique discourse for analysis, evaluation and critique and its own forms of autonomy so as not to become a toothless hostage of either creative economics or academic conformism.

To remedy such dangers, platforms for discussion, critique and evaluation are essential. We would therefore like the ELIA symposium in Gothenburg to become such a platform.

At the exhibition Talkin’ Loud and Saying Something!, which will take place at the Gothenburg Museum of Art, we will not only have the opportunity to engage in four important research projects but we will also have time to talk about theory and principles.

We would really like to make this symposium into a forum for in-depth artistic research projects and open-minded, stimulating discussions, which will, in turn, encourage, promote and cultivate the formation of critical discourse and meta-discourse in our field.

Read more >>

2. 2010: STANDARDS NOT STANDARDISATION
Management of Quality in European Higher Arts Education

Organised by John Butler, Birmingham City University, and Kieran Corcoran, Art, Design and Printing at Dublin Institute of Technology.

This symposium will ask how we can use our experience of Quality Assurance and Enhancement at the BA level to enhance quality at the master’s and doctoral levels. The inter}artes thematic network has developed Qualification Frameworks for the Master’s and doctoral levels using the Tuning Process and has submitted this framework for consideration as part of the EC’s European Qualifications Framework. If this is to work effectively, a code of good practice for Quality Assessment and Quality Enhancement has to be developed to ensure that the levels in terms of knowledge, competencies and skills as specified by the inter}artes Qualification Frameworks can be achieved.
The symposium will provide a detailed, practical working knowledge of Quality Assessment and Quality Enhancement for managers / senior lecturers / course leaders who are developing new Master’s courses, as well as a detailed introduction to a range of current developments in Quality Assessment and Quality Enhancement for the doctoral level in European higher arts education.

3. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Transition from Discipline-based to Thematic Approaches in Arts and Design Organisation, Curriculum & Partnerships

Organised by Chris Wainwright, University of the Arts, London.

The symposium takes as its core theme the debates surrounding the future direction and agendas for the art school. It proposes to question the relationship between subject disciplines and a wider range of social and cultural conditions which affect and are in turn affected by cultural practice. In many cases these cross over arts discipline boundaries.
The question ‘Who Is Responsible?’ also challenges artists and designers to reflect and comment on the broader issues of our time, such as climate change, social integration, intolerance, migration and terrorism. How do both the artist and the art institution see themselves as functioning purposefully in relation to these and other external factors?

Confirmed participants / speakers in the symposium will include: Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; Duncan Higgins, Artist and NESTA Fellow, UK; David Buckland, Director of the Cape Farewell Project ( www.capefarewell.com ).

4. THE ARTS AS DIALOGUE?
On the Place of the Arts in Multicultural Societies

Organised by Thera Jonker, Utrecht School of the Arts, and Michel Metayer, Ecole des Beaux Arts, Toulouse.

With the emergence of mass migration and globalisation over the past few years, some schools have introduced an explicit intercultural orientation in their programmes, while others claim that what they offer has a universal profile.
Art schools are facing new challenges in coping with differences and the responsibility for social integration. However, if this process will end up eliminating differences and unintentionally removing tension, conflict and movement, it will merely create a state of consensus.
In this symposium we will explore the notion of “intercultural dialogue” through the study and experience of the original meaning of dialogue in practice and theory. The programme of the symposium will explore:

• interactive experiments in the field of performing arts and digital games in which participants will have an active role;
• the student film I See You on intercultural dialogue from several global perspectives (Africa, Asia);
• the arts as dialogue through discussions between art theoreticians, artists and the audience.

The symposium is based on the paper Dialogue, in and out of art written by Michel Metayer and Antonia Birnbaum. You can download the paper here .


5. WHAT IMPACT?
Rethinking Higher Arts Education within the Creative Economy

Organised by Marje Lohuaru, Academy for Music and Theatre, Tallinn, Estonia, in cooperation with Truus Ophuijsen, Senior Advisor at ELIA.

Starting from the notions of globalisation and the creative economy and the fact that today more than ever economic growth and welfare depend on a society’s ability to attract creative talent, this symposium will take an in-depth look at the main consequences and implications of this situation for higher arts education. Special attention will be paid to Master’s and doctoral initiatives responding to these new needs. We will discuss how higher arts education can cope with the consequences of the new fields and roles of education without sacrificing fundamental values.
While avoiding ‘one size fits all’ solutions, this symposium will fuel the debate and the exchange of experience from the perspectives of institutions, graduates and students as well as from entrepreneurs, policy makers and planners.


The discipline sessions at this year’s conference will all take place simultaneously on Thursday afternoon, from 16h00-18h00. You may select one discipline session to attend.

ARCHITECTURE
Organised by Lisbeth Birgersson, Chalmers University of Technology.
The Design of the Design Process, with Halina Dunin-Woyseth

The key aims of this session are:

• to exchange experience of education and research between European Schools of Architecture and Design and make contacts for further collaborations
• to ask the question: Can more focus on the design process in education of architects and designers give the students tools for managing architectural and design tasks for the future?
• to explore the questions: How can students in architectural and design schools learn about the design process and how to manage and design processes? How can more aspects be included? What should be the base: a more research driven or a more emotional driven design process? Or can it include both?

The participants will explore the questions above in small groups conducted by teachers/researchers from the hosting institutions. The discussion will carry on in a reception afterwards. The reception will take place in the yard at the School of Architecture. Here teachers and researchers at the hosting Chalmers University of Technology will show what they are working with as a possibility for the guests to exchange experiences. Also the guests will be encouraged to make posters as a response to the questions the workshop was based in. The posters will be exposed in the yard and also function as meeting points in which contacts can be established.

DANCE
Organised by Gun Román, University College of Dance / ELIA Dance Section
The Development of a Dance Research Culture, with Efva Lilja and Henk Borgdorff

The key aims of this session are:

• to raise the awareness on artistic research in dance
• to raise the awareness on how to build and support the development of an artistic research culture within Higher Education in Dance
• to give ideas for the development of second and third cycles in Dance

Questions to be asked :What’s our definition of artistic research in dance? Who is interested in or benefits from artistic research? How can we work with quality assurance in artistic process / research? Is there a place for the artist within artistic research? The discipline session will also be dedicated to the education and preparation of artistic research in dance within the three cycles. What kind of knowledge is needed, what kind of courses? How do you make the students aware of artistic process / research as a tool for progression within Higher Education? How can we develop methods in artistic process / research? How can we develop documentation and dissemination of artistic research in dance?

DESIGN part I
Organised by Nina Bondeson, School of Design and Crafts, University of Gothenburg
Part 1: Time at Hand, with Anders Lindsteth, Nina Bondeson

The key aims of this session are to enhance the discussion about:

• a diversified field of art – creating verbal and nonverbal meanings
• the position of practical artmaking in higher art education today
• what kind of knowledge is being produced

Theoretical and practical studies in art are equally time-consuming if we want our efforts to cause interesting and important outcomes. When the field of practical art making is opening up for research, the question is how research can contribute to practical work. The problem is that research may tend to develop an understanding of practical art making from without, e.g. a classification or analysis of methods, styles, materials and so on. Such research must not elucidate the process of practical art making, and therefore not lead to any practical development. In this session we shall discuss the possibility of investigating practical art making from within the practice. We shall discuss how to elucidate the practical knowledge that manifests itself in such practice, in action and work.

DESIGN part II
Organised by PO Landgren, Cumulus
Part 2: Designing for Quality of Life, with Ian Grout

The key aims of this session are:

• to explore, map and suggest action(s) within and for this critical aspect of design.
• to suggest ways in which design may evolve, steps that designers may take and strategies that design educators may employ in the education of their students, for the future benefit of our emerging ecologically aware society.

Being in an emerging ecologically aware society, relationships with and expectations of products will change. We will need to reconsider the context, way and form in which these objects come into existence. This is a design issue.

“7x4x7, Designing for Quality of Life” was an International symposium to develop new knowledge in this critical aspect of design. It was held in Gothenburg and Skärhhamn, Sweden in October 2008. It was enacted jointly by HDK, School of Design and Crafts Göteborg University and Cumulus International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media

Seven world class designers, seven world class educators, seven world class students and seven world class thinkers came together for seven days to debate and define quality of life as a tool, specification, vision, inspiration and opportunity for future design.

FASHION
Organised by Frances Corner, University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion
The Politics of Fashion - with Professor Sandy Black and Penny Martin

The key aims of this session are:

• to debate the environmental, ethical, and social impact of fashion in the 21st century
• to encourage a debate about the future directions of fashion education in addressing these issues in the curriculum for our students, graduates and the industry.
• to explore with other creative subjects ways fashion can interact with other disciplines to find solutions to a number of critical agendas and opportunities facing creative graduates.

Fashion influences many aspects of our 21st century lives. It is a vast industry and at its heart is its inherent value added quality which means we are prepared to pay for the fact that a particular item of clothing or accessory makes us feel more beautiful, intelligent and successful. It sells us a dream and these days almost everyone in society wants to be part of this dream. Fashion is therefore a key social, economic and cultural driver that many in developed and developing countries recognise and are investing in to gain in particular the economic benefits.

Nevertheless, there are a number of very real issues facing this subject. Climate change and the effects on the world’s resources and workers of a global fast fashion industry is an area that many in the fashion industry and fashion education recognise must be addressed if the industry is to have a viable long term future. Similarly, fashion has been democratised during the 20th century, yet in many ways, its democratisation has not gone far enough. It leaves out significant parts of the population – those who are ageing and have a disability – and there is exclusion through consumerism and the dream that is sold to us through the representation of the beautiful. If you can afford it and if you look right then you too can be fashionable. This leaves many feeling disenfranchised contributing to social and psychological pressures on both individuals and society.

This session’s debates will therefore touch on the following areas: the environmental and ethical; health and well-being; media and representation; consumerism and society. The perspective will be primarily from that of fashion as a subject discipline and the educational challenges and responsibilities for an institution preparing graduates for a career in a 21st century industry.

FILM
Organised by Gunilla Buhrstedt, University of Gothenburg
"Our Time’s Fear of Seriousness" – a dialogue with Roy Anderson

"The contemporary world of the media has, to an even greater extent, taken over the administering of artistic means of expression, often with the pure ambition of earning money or getting high viewer figures-as it may also be expressed. In these contexts, it is frequently heard that the media’s ambition is not to create art but merely entertainment – as if these concepts should be each other’s opposites, and as if responsibility for the artistic means of expression should be less because the (world of the) media is out to entertain people! On the other hand, the fact that someone expresses an ambition to create art is, again, by no means a guarantee that the ambition really is this, or that the result of it is automatically art. However we handle artistic means of expression, whether in the service of profit, entertainment or selling, or if we handle these means completely independently, the world of filmmaking will experience the consequences. The productions that are created are expressions of a view of existence and its values. These expressions are a part of the material with which people create their conception of the world and with which society creates its moral ethos", writes Roy Andersson, Swedish film director, in his book "Our time’s fear of seriousness ".

It is our wish to discuss the functions of image and film in a society undergoing a paradigm shift, where new technologies for producing, communicating and receiving kinetic/moving images are becoming more and more important for people as a way of communicating in their everyday lives. With this change as the point of departure, we would, on the one hand, like to see how the conditions for communicating in a multicultural society change, and, on the other hand, how this paradigm shift affects our perceptions of presence, history, identity and power. As an extension of this phenomenon, we would like to pose the question of how all these changes affect the conditions for the art of filmmaking.

FINE ART
Organised by Leslie Johnson, University of Gothenburg, Valand School of Fine Arts / Paradox
Local and Global Social Practice, - with Nikos Papastergiades and Esther Shalev-Gertz

The key aims of this session are:

• to introduce the concept of “cosmopolitanism” in relation to place related art practices
• to discuss this concept with the audience
• to discuss the influence of new technologies on art as social practice

In this lecture the way contemporary artists are rethinking the links between the local and the global is explored. Particular attention is paid to the way artists have increasingly developed collaborative techniques to incorporate the actions and thinking of the public. Many examples of this collaborative turn have now been examined as evidence of an emergent aesthetic form that is somehow more consistent with the explosion of new communicative media and the social forces of globalization. The session addresses the concern to trace the intersections between these aesthetic and sociological relationships. By focusing on this level of interconnection, new forms of dialogue might be discovered that are occurring in very specific places and which also have a profound resonance with global concerns. The aim is to consider how art mediates in social relationships, and vice versa, how the new communicative and visual technologies allow for a new kind of aesthetic mediation. This provides a new perspective for thinking about the context of art, and the way art helps to shape social relations even as it performs its own work. For it is in one sense always an attempt to make sense of one’s place in the world, and when the idea of place is increasingly defined through a dialectic of mobility and stasis, then it becomes all the more involved in the definition of fluid possibilities, open exchanges and cosmopolitan dialogues.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Organised by Margareta Hanning, University of Gothenburg
Beyond Mobility
A session specially organised for international relations officers and international coordinators on the enhancement of cooperation among art schools after the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Agenda.


MUSIC
Organised by Martin Prchal, European Association of Conservatories (AEC)
European-level and Subject-specific Approaches to Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Music Education

OPERA & MUSICAL THEATRE
Organised by Anna-Maria Koziomtzis, Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg
On Our Way to Where? - with Kasper Bech Holten and Lise-Lotte Axelsson

Young opera singers and musical theatre artists meet a lot of demands concerning voice production and action skills. New operas often have big ranges and singers have to use the voice in ways that not always are coherent of those they learned during their education. Our schools therefore must look ahead and prepare the students through cooperation with experienced composers as well as composer students. New demands also count acting skills and the students need to meet with different kinds of acting and acting theories during their education.

During their education opera singers meet with repertoire from four centuries, in different meaning historical material. During the 20th century it became out of date to perform operas in their original settings and an era of the director began to take over. It is a risky task to move operas in time and opera houses and opera schools must relate to tradition as well as the relevance of operas to our modern society. Sometimes change of time and context work extremely well, for instance the performances of Die Rosenkavaliere and Die Frau ohne Schatten at Göteborgs Operan. So - how do we relate to and discuss history and the demands of a society of today?

THEATRE
Organised by Anthony Dean, Prospero Taking it to the Streets

This session seeks to explore the increasing interest in street theatre, site specific work and theatrical performance taking place outside of the more conventional frames of presentation. This session will provide an insight into some of the emerging (and re-emerging) practices and philosophies associated with producing both small and large-scale theatrical events outside the physical and social confines of formal performance spaces.