How can we approach archives, museums and collections in creative and critical ways? What archival traces from past to present need to be re-examined? What stories do archives contain and whose are absent from them? What narratives need to be questioned and retold to help us better understand the complex problems.
we are facing today? What stories need to be told and how? How can the legacy of certain artefacts present in archives be challenged?
In this course, we would like to artistically open up, identify and scrutinise the complex themes within archiving, from its possibilities to its limitations, and respond actively and creatively in order to create new perspectives. This will first be achieved through a series of online seminars that introduce the concepts of “archive,” and “collection,” the creative practices that relate to them and the artists who have worked with them. We will also discuss the themes surrounding archive collections, the gaps and their limitations and examine existing creative projects and museums that work with these themes. Students will then explore together existing online collections from the archives, libraries and museums in Weimar or of a particular area of interest.
Later in the on-site week of the course, they will have the chance to visit some of the city’s archives and see their collections firsthand. Based on this primary research, students will then be asked to work together to select a document, gap, section or part of an archival collection that they would like to “open out” and respond or question to in a creative way and show to an audience. The on-site week will also be more practically focussed where students combine and demonstrate the “opening out” of archival material. Students will work together to build their own alternative “museum” to showcase their final projects ready to open for the Spring School Open Studios.
NOTE:
This course includes an attendance phase in Weimar from February 27 to March 08, 2025.
By the end of this course, students will be better able to:
Students (bachelor/master/PhD) from the faculties Art and Design, Media Art, Architecture and Urbanism who are creative, curious and interested in the topics of creativity, arts and archiving.
Sophie Foster
MFA, Post Graduate Certification in Education (PGCE)
Learning Designer
http://sophiefoster.org
Maria Paula Maldonado
MFA
Artist and cultural manager
https://mariapaulamaldonado.github.io/
Your application should be submitted until November 3rd, 2024.
Required application documents:
The course fee is 300 EURO and includes:
The course fee does not include:
Participants, coming from the partner universites in the framework of Erasmus BIP scholarship and BUW students don't pay the course fee.
In addition to the Spring School courses, we offer a comprehensive "Service Package", which includes participation in the excursions and social programme, free entrance to the museums, travel by public transport and lunch in the student cafeteria. The booking of the Service Package for €70 is optional.
Students who do not take up the Service Package are automatically required to pay a course deposit of €100. This is to protect us against costs incurred by non-participation. Since in this case, the universities will not receive any funding from the European Commission. The deposit will be refunded as soon as the participants start the course in Weimar.
3 ECTS
BUW students: please check with the academic programme coordinator for credit recognition.
Please note our terms and conditions (admission conditions, cancellation conditions etc.)
