VoCA is pleased to announce the dates and host institutions for the 2017 Artist Interview Workshops, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Now in its sixth year, VoCA’s Artist Interview Workshop program aims to educate conservators, curators, educators, and their colleagues on the methods and skills required to conduct successful artist interviews and gather knowledge essential to the stewardship of contemporary art.
This year, we will be offering one workshop for arts professionals, and it will take place at the Rebuild Foundation in Chicago on June 8 to 9, 2017. Additionally, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University will host a workshop designed specifically for conservation graduate students in conjunction with the ANAGPIC conference on April 23, 2017.
The workshop will be led by Jill Sterrett, Director of Collections at SFMOMA and VoCA Board President, and Richard Cándida Smith, Professor of History at UC Berkeley, whose respective experiences in museum-based interview programs and oral history produce a rigorous, instructive, and interactive agenda.
If you are interested in attending, the application for this program is now available online at www.voca.network. The deadline to apply is March 3, and successful applicants will be notified by March 20, 2017. Space will be limited, so don’t wait: submit your application today!
Or, if you can’t join us in Chicago, talk to us about having the Artist Interview Workshop come to you. To bring a VoCA Workshop to your city or organization, please contact VoCA’s Executive Director, Lauren Shadford, at [email protected].
Testimonials:
“I came into the workshop open-minded, and with no concrete expectations—except that I wanted to establish a foundation that would make me more comfortable and confident in my role as an interviewer. I got that, and much more!”
–Meredith Reiss, Collections Manager of the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, attended the 2014 Workshop held at the Lunder Conservation Center
“I sought a toolkit for the approach to the interview—what I received was a crash course in self-examination and the very nature of communication. The critical underpinnings of this kind of work were under discussion—we rarely have time in our profession to reflect on such things. What a treat.”
–Chad Alligood, Curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, attended the 2014 Workshop held at the Dallas Museum of Art
“This workshop exceeded my expectations! The presenters and moderators expressed a tremendous depth of knowledge. I applied to this workshop in the hope of developing strategies for effectively engaging with narrators; I leave with a breadth of understanding of practical, theoretical, and legal aspects of creating useful interviews, conversations, and reviews.”
–Yasmeen Siddiqui, Independent curator, essayist, and lecturer, attended the 2016 Workshop held at the Denver Art Museum
For more information about VoCA and our various programs, or to subscribe to our newsletter, please visit our website at www.voca.network or reach out to our Program Manager, Margaret Graham, at [email protected]k.
