International research collaborations

Imagined Organisations: international gathering
This six-day intensive, July 22–27, 2026 in Chișinău and Iași brings artists, curators and theorists together to exchange practices and perspectives on how artistic organisations face the new challenges raised by the transformative impact of artistic research as it intersects with the organisational forms through which both state and non-state actors support artistic development. This has not been a uniform development, but one that has different characteristics across various political geographies. While in the “former East”, these changes overlapped with the major geopolitical shifts of the 1990s, in the “former West”, the rise of artistic research was strongly inflected by the internal discourses and practices of universities and arts academies. It is now clear that, in both geopolitical contexts, the new demands on institutional structures arising from the need for change generated by the specific challenges of artistic research have not been fully resolved. It is also clear however, that these geopolitical contexts are multiple, dynamic and internally diversified rather than fixed essentialist. 

Contributors include: Charles Esche, Djordje Balmajović, Andrei Morari, Minna Henriksson & Sezgin Boynik, Vitalie Sprînceană, Cristina David, Ioana Florea, Maria Hlavajova, Ghenadie Popescu, Baran Caginli, Vladimir Us, Florin Bobu, Livia Pancu and others. Co-organisers tranzit.ro/ Iași, 1+1 Association, Oberliht Association, George Enescu National University of Arts and CAPIm. 

Participation free. Booking required. Full programme here.

A Ground(ed) Elsewhere: symposium
A Ground(ed) Elsewhere partly draws upon Phalafala’s work on forms of being, knowing, and doing from the Southern African Black cosmological archives. Phalafala interrogates here(ness) and elsewhere(ness) as sites of imagination, memory, and knowledge inherited from indigenous cosmologies. Invariably threading the two concepts to forms of matriarchal knowledge “a counter-cartography from the Black cosmological archive, one which maps and generates alternative forms of ontologies, relationalities and epistemologies.” These ideas of groundedness, framed within a cosmology that rejects the ocularcentric hierarchising of coloniality, also link with the Livingston Perennial theme of “Sonic Solidarities” for the Zambia leg.

Keynotes: Dr Uhuru Phalafala, Anawana Haloba, and Professor kąrî'kąchä seid’ou. Co-organised by the Wits School of Arts Curatorial, Public and Visual Cultures department, Visual Cultures and Curatorial Studies (VCCS) and Expanded Artistic Research Network (EARN).

Wits School of Arts, Johannesburg / September 7–9, 2026. Conference fee: R1200 (Students R800). Call for papers deadline: July 3. Advance information here. 

Night Study: online seminar series
Night Study began by examining the history of subversive educational forms, their emancipatory traditions and the need for collective study culminating in the Night Study exhibition at Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre, Ireland. In this new series we consider genealogies and practices of emancipatory education and models of collective study. It will culminate in a new publication provisionally entitled Night Study / Collective Study. Night Study is open to all educators in the Arts and Humanities working in both formal and informal settings. Jointly facilitated by Dr. Glenn Loughran and Prof. Mick Wilson the seminar series meets monthly on Wednesdays, 5-6:30 pm CET in 2026-2027: October 7, November 4, December 2, January 20, February 17, March 24, April 21, May 19. 

Online. October 7, 2026–May 19, 2027. Participation free. Booking required. 

The Otolith Group on Self-Organisation
The Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar) address the influence of multiple forms and genealogies of self-organisation via selected case studies, to determine how concepts of self-organisation contour their research and working practices, and those of The Otolith Collective. Online, Monday, November 5, 2026, 4:30–7pm (CET). Part of Self-Organisation Public Program. Participation free. Booking required.

Between Dissent and Professionalisation: Debating Artist-Led Self-Organisation
Conference and exhibition November 27–28, 2026, co-organised by Dave Beech, Jason E. Bowman, Julie Crawshaw and James Schofield. The Exhibition Research Lab Gallery, Liverpool School of Art and Creative Industries. Further information and registration details posted on CAPIm website, August 31, 2026. Part of Self-Organisation Public Program.