2010-11 Seminar Artful Encounters: on ethnography, art and conservation

November 18th and 19th, 2010, Maastricht - The Netherlands.

Visit the website - www.artfulencounters.nl - for full program and registration

Although highly critical of its colonialist connotations, many artists today employ methods that traditionally belong to the academic discipline of anthropology. They claim to use ethnography as an integral component of their artistic practice (Foster, 1999; Desai, 2002). Those studying the arts (academic disciplines such as art history, cultural studies, etc., as well as more “applied” disciplines such as conservation) may use these very same ethnographic methods to understand and deal with art worlds (Morphy & Perkins, 2006; Van Saaze, 2009).

Understanding contemporary art today therefore increasingly asks for an approach that is sensitive to local and changeable meanings, to process and the ephemeral qualities of works-in-progress, and to the ways in which the public sphere can become an arena for artistic investigation. This combined seminar stages a series of encounters between ethnographic artists, ethnographers of art, and conservation ethnographers within this methodological hall of mirrors. Of special interest is the process of documentation within ethnographies. How do ethnographers hold what they find? Methodology-handbooks as well as reflections about fieldwork discuss exhaustively the art and pitfalls of note-taking, interpretation, categorization, narration, and writing. Yet, the variety of means of documentation is much greater and different styles of documentation allow for different effects.

 

Artful Encounters wants to examine the interesting overlaps between academic ethnography on the one hand and artistic practice in its broadest sense – both its process and its conservation – on the other hand. The seminar has three aims: (1) to improve ethnographic research by sharing research experiences; (2) to explore overlaps and differences in ethnographic methods between two different but fundamentally connected positions: the artist as ethnographer and the ethnographer as artist; and (3) to investigate what the ethnographic research tradition could contribute to the field of artistic research.

 

Through open discussion, paper presentations, workshops and special assignments participants are invited to contribute to the revitalization of an old tradition by setting a new agenda in artistic practice and arts research.

 

Artful Encounters is organized by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University (Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Renée van de Vall, Vivian van Saaze), Research centre Autonomy and the Public Sphere in the Arts / Zuyd University (Peter Peters, Ruth Benschop), and the Virtual Knowledge Studio (Sarah de Rijcke). The organization is supported by Wilma Lieben and Linda Bouchoms.

 

* Please note that places are limited. Register as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.*

 

Visit the website www.artfulencounters.nl for program and registration.

Location: Filmtheatre Lumière; Bogaardenstraat 40 b, 6211 SP Maastricht, The Netherlands