August 26–31, 2019
E. A. Jonušo str. 3
LT-93127 Nida
Lithuania
The Nida Doctoral School (NDS) comprises an intensive programme for DA & PhD candidates in visual & performing arts, design, media & the humanities.
Focusing on questions pertinent to their individual research, doctoral candidates will work closely with speakers & tutors from art, design, higher education & the culture sector. Talks, discussion groups, doctoral research presentations (formal, informal, performative, experimental, etc.), peer review, group & individual consultations, dérives & screenings will contribute to developing the candidates’ doctoral projects.
This year’s NDS will be held at Venice Biennale—at the Lithuanian Pavilion, the Research Pavilion & additional environments in Venice.
NDS in 2019 is energized by the 30th anniversary of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, and its opening credit sequence soundtrack-ed by Public Enemy. Convinced by the radical potentialities of artistic research, the NDS utilises this 30th anniversary to struggle with the following questions:
What does it mean to do the right thing?
How can we as artists, designers, theorists, curators, educators, archivists, musicians, and critics engage critically with power? Where does power reside? How is it secured, consolidated, and utilised? And to what end? If power is embedded and embodied in systems – finance, education, culture, healthcare, & government - how can we discern, participate critically, and even transform such systems? If such governmentality is the organising practice (mentalities, rationalities, and techniques) through which our society is rendered governable, how might we prove ourselves to be “ungovernable”?
In our own search for justice, how can our artistic research—our labour, communicative bodies, performative acts, conversations, commitment to communities, and to our own practice—declare our resistance & dissent, our agonism & dissensus, thereby enacting our right to speak which, in turn, enables us to not so much fight the power as fight for power, and, in so doing, honour our obligation to do the right thing?
Confirmed speakers from art, design, museums & galleries & the public knowledge sector:
Dr Michelle Williams Gamaker, moving image & performance artist; Lecturer, Goldsmiths; Chair, commissioning agency Pavilion; co-founder, Women of Colour Index (WOCI) Reading Group.
Professor Guy Julier, Aalto University, researcher, activist, and consultant; author of Economies of Design, Design & Creativity, The Culture of Design.
Morgan Quintance, presenter, BBC’s The Culture Show; contributing editor, e-flux’s Art Agenda; founding member, curatorial collective DAM PROJECTS; broadcaster, RESONANCE FM; musician, artist and documentary film maker; contributor to Art Monthly, Frieze, and Rhizome.org.
The curator of the 2019 NDS is Dr Marquard Smith; MA Museums & Galleries in Education, UCL; Professor of Artistic Research, Vilnius Academy of Arts; Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Visual Culture; Board, Live Art Development Agency & Arts Catalyst.
What is Nida Doctoral School?
NDS’s goal is to provide time, space & a conceptual framework for participants to gain insight into their research as well as to broaden and diversify their outlook & methodological tools.
NDS is tailored for doctoral candidates in visual and performing arts, design & humanities. The programme comprises intensive courses organised once a year and doctoral residencies. Check the Colony’s call for residency applications (after February 1) for more about doctoral residencies. Upon successful completion of NDS, participants gain 5 ECTS credits.
Usually at VAA Nida Art Colony, in 2019 the NDS will be held in Venice, coinciding with VAA Nida Art Colony producing the Lithuanian Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale.
NDS was initiated by Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts and Aalto University. University of the Arts Helsinki and University of the Arts London joined in 2016–17.
There is no tuition fee, but there are costs. Please look for additional information on VAA Nida Art Colony website.
