The European Forum for Advanced Practices (EFAP)

On March 13-15, 2020, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht hosts a convening of the European Forum for Advanced Practices (EFAP). Two public programs related to the forum take place at BAK on the evenings March 13 and 14, 2020.

EFAP is a self-organized, international gathering of practitioners, scholars, and organizers from transdisciplinary realms of art and education. It has been established as a forum to think through the changing nature of research, as a practice-driven activity that is increasingly important to multi-positional knowledge production. For over two years, the working groups of EFAP have been engaged in meetings around revaluing value and reshaping vocabularies in order to capture the multiple points of entry that contemporary practices enable. EFAP sees research as a far-reaching activity by individuals, collectives, institutional entities, and fleeting platforms that can remap and reshape knowledge production toward the inventive and the propositional. These ideas have led to developing a Charter for Advanced Practices.

BAK—as an art institute engaging anticipatory, futural, and propositional practices of art and learning that are driven by complex societal and environmental urgencies—shares with EFAP multiple conceptual underpinnings. This gathering is part of a continuous process that both BAK and EFAP are committed to toward shifting assumptions, expectations, and ambitions within the sciences, social action, policy-making, and local communities regarding the place and role of art and research vis-à-vis the most pressing concerns of a rapidly changing world.

The public program on Friday, March 13, 2020 includes a conversation between curator and urbanist Paul Goodwin, Director of TrAIN Research Centre, University of the Arts, London; artist and lecturer Ima-Abasi Okon, London and Amsterdam; and Abbas Zahedi, artist, social practitioner, and co-founder of The New Babylonians, London. The conversation takes place against the background of the current exhibition at BAK, Tony Cokes: To Live as Equals (February 28-May 17, 2020).

On Saturday, March 14, 2020, filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri, Berlin presents a screening and lecture. Jihan El-Tahri is an award-winning film director, writer, visual artist and producer. She currently serves as the General Director of the Berlin-based documentary support institution DOX BOX. El-Tahri has been a member of The Academy (Oscars) since 2017. She is the director of more than 15 films and exhibits her work in museums and Biennales around the world. El-Tahri has served on the boards of several African film organizations including the Federation of Pan African Cinema and the Guild of African Filmmakers in the Diaspora.

The programs are introduced by Irit Rogoff, writer, theorist, teacher, and curator, London; Florian Schneider, filmmaker, writer, curator, and Head of the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art (NTNU); and Maria Hlavajova, General and Artistic Director of BAK, Utrecht.

The public programs on Friday and Saturday commence at 7pm and 7:30pm, respectively, and are free of charge.

This EFAP meeting is presented in collaboration with HKU University of the Arts, Utrecht and is the second gathering following the forum’s inauguration in October 2019 at CA2M, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Madrid.

The European Forum for Advanced Practices is currently funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). COST is a funding organisation for the creation of research networks, called COST Actions. These networks offer an open space for collaboration among scientists across Europe (and beyond) and thereby give impetus to research advancements and innovation.

BAK is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the City Council, Utrecht. BAK’s main partner in the field of education and research is HKU University of the Arts, Utrecht.