Open call for a workshop
July 21–27, 2019
Montréal H3H 2S6
Canada
Events are acts of solidarity around ideas. When a normal day includes both mass protests and individual experiences of digital content on couches, it becomes harder to predict turnout and it is more significant when we do turn out (and where). Yet despite a proliferation of hosts—from palatial cultural institutions traditionally oriented toward education, to nomadic producers who just want to leave a good-looking digital corpse for others to consume—it is remarkable how standardized public program formats still are.
Assumptions about the proper relations between institutions and their publics have faced invigorating criticism for a long time, but more experiments are needed to try on new roles, and certain tools lend themselves to this better than others. For a museum to critically revise the processes embedded in “normal” curatorial practice means reconfiguring the entire institution, but digital initiatives look like a safe second space, and as for public programs, just abolish a word like “education” and opportunities appear. These contaminations can be encouraged or contained.
To investigate the latent potential for public programming to lead by upsetting expectations—to disturb the public and also the institution—the CCA invites eight cultural agonists for a residency in Montreal July 21–27, 2019. We will intensely investigate public formats, interview institutional and non-institutional producers, and analyze the tools—the rules, stages, costumes, furniture, and methods—they use to shape the character of their events. The residency will produce new formats for events on architectural topics, which will be tested in the following year by the CCA and offered for appropriation and re-enactment by international friends.
How to is a series of accelerated annual residencies that bring together small teams at the CCA to produce a new tool—which can be physical, digital, or somewhere in between—and rapidly begin to address a specific opportunity or need. In 2018, How to: not make an architecture magazine produced a manual for avoiding architectural publishing. In 2019 the residency is directed by Lev Bratishenko, the CCA's Curator, Public, with Mariana Pestana, architect, independent curator and co-director of The Decorators.
How to: apply
Send an email to howto@cca.qc.ca with around 400 words of convincing motivation, and a CV. The workshop takes place 21–27 July 2019, and is free. Participants can request to have costs of attendance (travel, accommodations, food) reimbursed up to 500 CAD. The primary language of the week will be English. You do not have to agree with everything in this call to be selected as a participant.
Application deadline is May 20, 2019. For further information, please visit: cca.qc.ca/howtodisturb
About the CCA
The Canadian Centre for Architecture is an international research institution operating from the fundamental premise that architecture is a public concern. It was founded 40 years ago as a new type of cultural institution, with the specific aim of increasing public awareness of the role of architecture in contemporary society and promoting research in the field. We produce exhibitions, publications, and a range of activities driven by a curiosity about how architecture shapes—and might reshape—contemporary life. We invite architects, scholars, and the wider public to engage with our collection, deepening our understanding of the past and giving new relevance to architectural thinking in light of current disciplinary and cultural issues.
