https://www.facebook.com/101732028874161/

Iasi Arts Summer School, Sărăriei, no 189, Iasi (2026)

04/09/2025

IASS – Iasi Arts Summer School
"Emancipative Research. Critical perspectives in curatorial and artistic research"
September 3-5, 2025

Organized by Doctoral School of Visual Arts @ UNAGE Iași (Romania)
Location: Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași

www.artsummerschool.ro
Iasi Arts Summer School

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Module 3 (September 5, 2025):
Advanced Lecture and Open Research Workshop: Ronald Kolb (curator, Artistic Director of M.1 at the Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt and lecturer of curatorial practice in continuing education at the Zurich University of the Arts at Zurich University of the Arts)
11:00 - 13:00 Advanced Lecture and Discussions
13:00 - 15:00 Lunch Break
15:00 - 17:00 Open Research Workshop

-----------------------------------------------------------------

RONALD KOLB
POST-EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES. FROM DISCIPLINARY POWER TO GOVERNMENTAL ASSEMBLAGES IN THE EXHIBITIONARY COMPLEX
(advanced lecture)

In my lecture, I will outline the changing infrastructural challenges in the exhibitionary complex. I will follow a shift in the curatorial discourse shaped by Foucault’s concept of disciplinary power (as prominently carried out by Tony Bennett) toward forms of non-institutionalised governing practices (‘governmentality’). This trajectory highlights how exhibiting may help open up active social spaces for negotiation and (self-)critical knowledge production within transversal contact zones – and how such spaces may open possibilities for emancipatory research in the spirit of situated knowledges.

RONALD KOLB
A RELATIONSHIP-ORIENTED VIEW OF EXHIBITION HISTORY
(open research workshop)

The workshop will follow loosely my analytical toolkit, designed to outline relational categories that enable the analysis of exhibitionary projects, both within and outside art institutions. What can be done with exhibitionary practice is taken to task by reconfiguring the notions of audience, art institutions, different cultural producers, the economic background and the infrastructural dimension that binds them all together.
Task for participants: please bring a picture of an exhibition view (historical or contemporary) showing exhibits, viewers and the spatial setting.

Biography
Dr. RONALD KOLB (PhD) is Artistic Director of M.1 at the Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt, for the 2025/26 cycle. As an independent curator, transdisciplinary researcher and lecturer, he focuses on curatorial practices at the intersection of art, knowledge and society. He teaches curatorial practice in continuing education at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and is co-editor of the web journal On-Curating.org. In 2024, he completed his doctorate at the University of Reading with a dissertation entitled Curating as Governmental Practices. Post-exhibitionary Practices under Translocal Conditions in Governmental Constellations. A central feature of his work is the choreography of exhibitions and teaching formats as participatory spaces of knowledge. This is evident in the international events and exhibitions he has (co-)organised, including ‘Learning for Life,’ a festival and workshop programme for the Merz Academy Stuttgart (2018), ‘Situated Knowledges - Art and Curating on the Move,’ a digital event with Tai Kwun Contemporary, HK, and the Migros Museum (2021), the summer school ‘Commoning Curatorial and Artistic Education’ for documenta fifteen (2022), the study trip "Post-/Exhibitionary Practices: Art and Curating in Expanded Ecological Thought‘ and the international exhibition project ’Into the Rhythm", a collaboration with the ARKO Art Center, Seoul, which also took place at the Gwangju Biennale 2024. His interdisciplinary approach combines curatorial research with experimental formats of mediation and promotes dialogue between art, theory and social practice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

IASS is realised with the financial support of CNFIS, through the grant CNFIS-FDI-2025-F-0091.

IASS is endorsed by ICMA (Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE Iași), Center for Applied Aesthetics and Research-based practices (CeAR), and Vector Studio.

03/09/2025

IASS – Iasi Arts Summer School
"Emancipative Research. Critical perspectives in curatorial and artistic research"
September 3-5, 2025

Organized by Doctoral School of Visual Arts @ UNAGE Iași (Romania)
Location: Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași

www.artsummerschool.ro
www.facebook.com/iasiartssummerschool

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Module 2 (September 4, 2025):
Advanced Lecture and Open Research Workshop: Maria Hlavajova (curator, researcher, founding artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht)
10:00 - 12:00 Advanced Lecture and Discussions
12:00 - 14:00 Lunch Break
14:00 - 16:00 Open Research Workshop

-----------------------------------------------------------------

MARIA HLAVAJOVA
TOWARD THE NOT-YET: INSTITUTING/EXTITUTING OTHERWISE
(advanced lecture)

In this lecture, Hlavajova explores the notions of instituting and extituting otherwise as the processes of aesthetico-political institutional reordering in the face of the current conditions of “impossibility.” Centering on the project Trainings for the Not-Yet, co-convened by BAK and artist Jeanne van Heeswijk in 2019 and 2020 as “an exhibition as a series of trainings for a future of being together otherwise,” she speculates how the artistic practices of thinking how things are, imagining how things could be otherwise, and collective tactical embodying of these imaginaries—as if that were possible—entangle with what is “yet-to come.”

MARIA HLAVAJOVA
LETTING GO OF ILLUSIONS
(open research workshop)

Let’s take the institutional philosophy of BAK—thinking about how things are, imagining how they could be otherwise, and enacting these imaginaries to life—as a possible definition of artistic and curatorial research. From within this understanding of research as a post-disciplinary inquiry entwining critical epistemologies, creative practices, and tactics of making things public, we will examine the latter—“making public.” Together, we will speculate on how to bring our work outside of intellectual enclosures and contribute to the mobilizations of public life in defense of equality and social justice. We will use the lens of disillusionment—albeit in the positive sense, as “letting go of illusions” (R. Solnit)—to work both against and in spite of the contemporary socio-political dynamics of blatant right-wing populism.

Biography
MARIA HLAVAJOVA is an organizer, researcher, pedagogue, curator, and founding artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (from 2000 till 2025). Between 2008 and 2016, she was research and artistic director of the international collaborative research, exhibition, and education project FORMER WEST, which culminated in the publication Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 (which she co-edited with Simon Sheikh, 2016). Hlavajova has instigated and (co-)organized numerous projects at BAK and beyond, and (co-)edited a number of publications on art and political imagination. In addition, she is co-founder (with Kathrin Rhomberg) of the tranzit network and member of numerous advisory and supervisory boards. Hlavajova holds honorary doctorate from University of Gothenburg (2024). She lives in Amsterdam.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

IASS is realised with the financial support of CNFIS, through the grant CNFIS-FDI-2025-F-0091.

IASS is endorsed by ICMA (Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE Iași), Center for Applied Aesthetics and Research-based practices (CeAR), and Vector Studio.

02/09/2025

IASS – Iasi Arts Summer School
"Emancipative Research. Critical perspectives in curatorial and artistic research"
September 3-5, 2025

Organized by Doctoral School of Visual Arts @ UNAGE Iași (Romania)
Location: Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Module 1 (September 3, 2025):
Advanced Lecture and Open Research Workshop: Charles Esche (curator, writer, professor of contemporary art and curating at University of the Arts, London)
12:00 - 14:00 Advanced Lecture and Discussions
14:00 - 16:00 Lunch Break
16:00 - 18:00 Open Research Workshop

-------------------------------------------------------------------

CHARLES ESCHE
DEMODERNISING TO DECOLONISE
(advanced lecture)

This talk will explore possible responses to the question of decolonising or coming to terms with the colonial past from the position of western Europe. Economically and politically, but also culturally and philosophically, coloniality had an outsize influence of thinking and behaviour in the colonising territories of western Europe. While being complicit in a genocide and facing a changing world order, western Europe can no longer be satisfied that its modernist pluralism and capacity for self-critique might restore some semblance of ethical standards. Museums and art institutions have served as places where that pluralism and self-critique have traditionally played out and therefore their reaction to current conditions is (going to be) important. This talk will discuss some of the options towards demodernising as one possible, partial response by discussing the history of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven as an example.

CHARLES ESCHE
ARTISTS VS MUSEUMS AND ART SPACES
(open research workshop)

What kind of expectations do artists have of museums, and museums of artists? What are the pressures on institutions presenting and collecting art that impact on the relationship and are there ways for artists to negotiate better conditions and ways in which their work is received by different publics? In the workshop, we will have a broad discussion about how artistic work is valued by state and private institutions. I would hope to hear about positive and negative experiences from the participants, so that we can together find the right questions and ways to understand these two ‘friendly enemies’ in different cultural and economic contexts.

Biography
CHARLES ESCHE is a writer and curator based in Amsterdam. His academic and cultural focus is on the consequences of decolonial theory for his western Europe home and its relations with other parts of Europe, Eurasia and the world. He is currently writing about and developing with others the concept of demodernising as a way to approach this challenge. Charles is advisor at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht and professor of contemporary art and curating at University of the Arts, London, where he works in the Afterall research centre. He will be a resident at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris in 2026. He has published quite extensively in peer reviewed and other journals on museums and exhibitions including Documenta 15/Lumbung 1 in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, on Anti-Fascist monuments in Third Text and on Demodernising in multiple titles. His latest book publications are The Museum is Multiple, Van Abbemuseum, 2024 and Art and Its Worlds, Afterall and Koenig Press, 2021. He is writing a book on Demodern Thinking with Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti to be published by Duke University Press in 2026.
Until 2024 he was director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Among international exhibitions, he has (co-)curated Soils, Van Abbemuseum, 2024; The Meeting That Never Was, MO Museum, Vilnius, 2022; Hurting and Healing, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, 2022; Power and Other Things, Europalia, BOZAR, Brussels 2017; Art Turns, Word Turns; Museum MACAN, Jakarta 2017; Neither Forward nor Back, Jakarta Biennale 2015; How to Talk about Things that don’t Exist, 31st Sao Paulo Bienal 2014, Ideal for Living, U3 Triennale, Ljubljana 2011; Play Van Abbe, 2009-11, RIWAQ Biennale, Palestine, 2007 and 2009; Istanbul, Istanbul Biennale, 2005 and Gwangju Biennale, 2002, Tate Triennial, 2000.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

IASS is realised with the financial support of CNFIS, through the grant CNFIS-FDI-2025-F-0091.

IASS is endorsed by ICMA (Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE Iași), Center for Applied Aesthetics and Research-based practices (CeAR), and Vector Studio.

15/11/2023

Mathieu Asselin
An Unromantic Take on Critical Documentary Practice
Public Lecture
in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in artistic research”, an educational event based on a series of lectures/seminars and workshops on artistic research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Center for Contemporary Photography (www.c-f-c.ro).

November 16, 2023
09:30 - 12:30
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
Building D, Photo-Video Department

Join us as we challenge our beliefs and perceptions about critical documentary photography in this engaging lecture. As we venture into the realm of documentary practice, we'll explore thought-provoking questions and contemplate the evolving role of photographers in our complex world:
• How does our point of view and engagement influence our photographic choices?
• Is photography alone sufficient in today's society?
• Are we at risk of falling into aesthetic complacency when portraying pain and suffering, and is there a viable alternative?
We firmly believe that art and documentary photography remain vital tools for critique, revelation, and catalyzing change. This lecture aims to shed light on the transformative capacity of visual storytelling and its potential to inspire meaningful dialogues on pressing social and political issues.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The afternoon workshop
An Unromantic Take on Critical Documentary Practice -WS-
Run by Mathieu Asselin and Lavinia German

13:30 - 17:00, with lunch break
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
Building D

Join us for a day of exchange, mutual learning, and critical thinking as we delve into the world of critical documentary photography.
• A deeper understanding of the role and potential of documentary photography in today's world.
• Insights into transforming outrage into productive criticism that fosters change.
• Contemplation of the ethical and aesthetic aspects of documentary practice.
• Exploration of the power of visual strategies and the possibilities (or impossibilities) of influencing society.
• Research as a tool to shape a project
• "Show me the money" Guidance on navigating the turbulent waters of commercialisation, funding, to maintaining coherence in your work ethically speaking.

About critical documentary photography
Critical documentary photography is a genre of photography that goes beyond simply recording events or issues and instead seeks to engage with, critique, and challenge prevailing social, political, and cultural norms in a multilayered outcome. It uses artistic means such as visual aesthetics to effectively convey its message. This genre embraces subjectivity and allows photographers to bring their own perspectives and interpretations to the issues they document.

Preparation for the workshop:
We invite you to bring and present and ongoing documentary photographic project.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Mathieu Asselin is a documentary photographer, Professor at KASK and Royal Conservatory / School of Arts,University College, Ghent, Belgium. More info: https://www.mathieuasselin.com/
* Lavinia German is a Professor of Photography at “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iași.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
More info about Iasi Educational Event:
https://www.artsummerschool.ro/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This project is funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

22/09/2023

Cooperative Workshop
Run by Inês Moreira and Catalin Gheorghe
"Depicting an urban site in Iasi for curatorial intervention"
-----------------
September 14, 2023
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
-----------------
in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in curatorial research”, an educational event based on a series of lectures/seminars and workshops on curatorial research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Vector Studio. The project was funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

22/09/2023

Inês Moreira
"Urban/Curating as an advanced practice engaged with context"
Public Lecture/Seminar
-----------------
September 14, 2023
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
-----------------
in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in curatorial research”, an educational event based on a series of lectures/seminars and workshops on curatorial research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Vector Studio. The project was funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

21/09/2023

Cooperative Workshop
Run by Carolina Rito and Cristina Moraru
"Reimagining the function of museums today"
-----------------
September 13, 2023
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
-----------------
in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in curatorial research”, an educational event based on a series of lectures/seminars and workshops on curatorial research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Vector Studio. The project was funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

21/09/2023

Carolina Rito
"The Anatomy of Crises in Curating: Politics of Display and Neoliberalism"
Public Lecture/Seminar
-----------------
September 13, 2023
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
-----------------
in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in curatorial research”, an educational event based on a series of lectures/seminars and workshops on curatorial research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Vector Studio. The project was funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

07/09/2023

Inês Moreira
Urban/Curating as an advanced practice engaged with context
Public Lecture/Seminar

in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in curatorial research”, an educational event based on a series of 2 lectures/seminars and 2 workshops on curatorial research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Vector Studio.

September 14, 2023
10:00 - 12:00
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
Building A, Room A.0.11

Economic rupture, financial pressure, political tension, even climate and ecosystem change, accelerate the dismantlement of physical and social realities, into unstable sites of, sometimes, unwanted co-inhabitation. During the seminar we will focus on urban spaces, post-industrial zones and other man-made territories as sites daring for altered curatorial and artistic intervention and we will address urban/curating as a set of critical experimental practices occurring outside of cultural and museological institutions. In such projects, curators and artists engage as active agents with the conditions of specific contexts struggling with forces imposing its pressure. So as to critically address, to document, and to induce perception changes in/on contexts, we have been experimenting with altered modes of knowledge production, to which fieldwork, art-based research and research lead practices, have contributed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The afternoon workshop builds on this discussion and we propose to identify in Iasi a few sites under pressure/transformation and to imagine/articulate potential intersections. If possible, we will visit one or two after the session.

Cooperative Workshop
Run by Inês Moreira and Catalin Gheorghe
Depicting an urban site in Iasi for curatorial intervention

September 14, 2023
14:00 - 16:00
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
Building A, Room A.0.11

Reading for the workshop:
Moreira, Inês and Coelho, Patrícia. “Curatorial Fieldwork as a Critical Practice - Learning from Post-Nostalgic Knowings in Freixo” in Writing Place No. 7 (2023): Taking Place: Reflections from the Fieldworker
https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/writingplace/article/view/6461/5567

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Inês Moreira is a curator, editor and researcher at CEAA (Research Center Arnaldo Araújo) of Escola Superior Artistica do Porto, Portugal. More info: https://inesmoreira.org/

* Catalin Gheorghe is a theoretician, curator, and editor living in Iași, Romania. He is currently Professor of Curatorial Research at “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iași. More info about edited books: http://www.vector.org.ro/projects/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More info about Iasi Educational Event:
https://www.artsummerschool.ro/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This project is funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

05/09/2023

Carolina Rito
The Anatomy of Crises in Curating: Politics of Display and Neoliberalism
Public Lecture/Seminar

in the framework of “The poetics of crisis: critical perspectives in curatorial research”, an educational event based on a series of 2 lectures/seminars and 2 workshops on curatorial research, organized by “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi (Romania) and endorsed by ICMA (Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art, UNAGE) and Vector Studio.

September 13, 2023
10:00 - 12:00
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
Building A, Room A.0.11

This seminar examines the current situation of curating and institutions of display (museums, galleries, etc.), situating these practices at the intersection of two ongoing crises: colonial and neoliberal. Since the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, critiques of the colonial legacies of museums and exhibitions and demands for a decolonial role for these institutions have increased internationally. At the same time, museums have undergone a restructuring based on neoliberal business models that measure value in terms of growth in funding, programmed activities and audience numbers. This shift has steered programming away from risk-taking and critical experimental practices. This seminar examines these two scenarios and explores their implications for contemporary exhibition making.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The afternoon workshop builds on these discussions to explore new functions and possibilities for the future of institutions of display.

Cooperative Workshop
Run by Carolina Rito and Cristina Moraru
Reimagining the function of museums today

September 13, 2023
14:00 - 16:00
Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
Building A, Room A.0.11

Reading for the workshop:
Sternfeld, Nora. 2020. ‘Take a Deep Breath In: “Museum as Praxis”, Inaugurated in October 2035’. In Institution as Praxis: New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research, edited by Carolina Rito and Bill Balaskas, 124–35. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Carolina Rito is a researcher and curator, Professor of Creative Practice Research, at the Research Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities (CAMC), at Coventry University, United Kingdom. More info: https://carolinarito.com/

* Cristina Moraru is a researcher, curator, and editor from Iași, Romania. She is currently an Assistant Professor at “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iași, and a researcher in a project on curatorial contexts funded by ICMA (Research Institute of UNAGE Iași).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More info about Iasi Educational Event:
https://www.artsummerschool.ro/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This project is funded by CNFIS (The National Council for Financing Higher Education in Romania) through a Fund for Institutional Development, CNFIS-FDI-2023-F-0142.

Iasi Arts Summer School

04/09/2025

03/09/2025

02/09/2025

15/11/2023

22/09/2023

22/09/2023

21/09/2023

21/09/2023

07/09/2023

05/09/2023

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Establishment

Shortcuts

Share

Category