Commissioning and Curating Contemporary Public Art

Distance course online with intensive workshops in: Lisbon, Portugal; Bucharest, Romania; Riga, Latvia; and Gothenburg, Sweden. This course is an associated initiative of the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm).

A one-year, distance, part-time course, at masters level, introducing key practices and debates in working with art in the public realm. This is a continuing professional development course for curators, commissioners, policy-makers, artists, communities, activists, planners, architects and other professionals interested in the questions of commissioning, curating, and maintaining/de-commissioning contemporary public art. This international course, delivered in English, is based on a combination of distance education and participation in at least two intensive workshops (from a set of four). Workshops in 2025 will be in Lisbon, Portugal (March 19–21), Bucharest, Romania (May 14–16), Riga, Latvia (October 17–19) and Gothenburg, Sweden (November 19–21). 

The course is free within the EU/EEA area: No fees for EU and EEA citizens, Swedish residence permit holders and exchange students. Students are responsible for their own costs of attending the two selected intensive workshops. Admission is based on a letter of intention in English stating why you wish to attend the course and an updated CV.

Teaching team: Jason E. Bowman, Kerry Guinan, Kerstin Bergendal, Kjell Caminha, Maddie Leach, Mick Wilson. 

Previous guests: Barby Asante, Inger Asper Hedemyr, Merve Bedir, David Beech, Bianco-Valente (Giovanna Bianco & Pino Valente), Kathrin Böhm, Beatrice Catanzaro, Viviana Checchia, Francesca Comisso, Julie Crawshaw, DAAR (Alexandro Petti and Sandi Hillal), Åse Eg Jørgensen, Jeannette Ehlers, Galit Eilat, Charles Esche, Patrik Faming, Garry Farrelly, Lena From, Lia Ghilardi, Peter Hagdahl, Deniss Hanovs, maisuno+1 (Lígia Fernandes & Nicole Sánchez), Marika Hedemyr, Heidi Hänninen, Solvita Krese, Kristtina Ljokkoi, LOCALES (Sara Alberani & Valerio del Baglivo), Magdalena Malm, Marti Mannen, Paul O’Neill, Inês Nêves, Tone Olaf Nielsen, Henrik Orrje, Daniela Ortiz, Koi Persyn, Andrea Phillips, Esther Regueira, Santa Remere, Lisa Rosendahl, RuKollektiv, Nuno Sacramento, Pauline, Salinas, Helena Selder, Jessica Segerlund, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Minna Tarkka, Daniel Terres, Catharina Thörn, transparadiso (Barbara Holub & Paul Rajakovics), Jeanne van Heeswijk, Sonia Xie, Giovanna Esposito Yussif.

Content
What is the nature of public art? What do the policy-makers, commissioners, curators, artists and others working with public art need to know about this expanded field of practice? What are the processes and frameworks that operate when art is created in, and for, public space? How is public art implicated within spatial imaginaries of rural, urban, exurban, infrastructure, development and the touristic gaze? What do communities wishing to invite public art into their environments, or wishing to instigate public art commissions, need to know in order to pursue their desires and ambitions? Who can commission public art? Who is it commissioned for? What about decommissioning? What about failure? What are the spaces of “publicness” in an era of climate change, population displacement, digital networks, war, and the privatization of space? How can curators, commissioners, communities, artists, and other practitioners effectively move between ideas and ideals of public culture, and the pragmatic contexts of actual decision-making, production, procurement, installation, and planning processes? What, if any, are the possible relationships between public art, local democracy and the political imaginary? Is publicness a Euro-centric construction of colonial-modernity?

Practicalities
Online sessions typically on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4pm Swedish time (CET). You require stable internet access and headphones. Content from workshops may be posted online for participants. Participation in workshops means that contributions to discussion may be recorded for this purpose. 

Intensive workshops
Students are responsible for their own costs attending workshops.

Apply
September 16 to October 15 with letter of intention (in English) stating your reasons to study, maximum 350 words and recent CV. Admission criteria: (i) clarity of purpose in attending course, as evidenced in letter; (ii) capacity to actively contribute to the group dialogue, evidenced in letter. Applications: University Admissions (international applicants) and antagning.se (applicants in Sweden).

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