MA in Visual Arts: TRANS– Socially Engaged Art Practices

Translation—transition—translocal—transpedagogy—transborder—transvaluation—translation—transformation— transdisciplinarity—transgression

TRANS– master is one of the three master programs in Visual Arts in HEAD – Genève. It offers its students an ideal framework of reflection about collective and collaborative production modes. Art as a possible vector for social transformation, the artist’s engagement in society and the use of pedagogical processes as a tool for collaborative artistic production, are the specifics of this program.

Indeed, TRANS– master aims to foster a conscious, ethical and problematized approach of artistic work in a social context, based on alternative, critical and feminist pedagogies (in relationship with a reflection on new masculinities) in particular, and on the concept of transpedagogy, that is to say the action to blend art and education in order to create singular forms of exchange
and knowledge production.

In order to broaden intellectual and professional perspectives, the bilingual (French–English) programme invites international guests, artists or researchers in the field of socially engaged art practices and of critical gallery education.

Ongoing program 
From spring 2020, in discussion with artist Jorgge Menna Barretto, master TRANS— engages in a long- term reflection around the notion of ecopedagogy. This emerging term refers to a dialogical pedagogy relating to co-construction and care, which enables and supports new relationships to our environment.

The sanitary crisis caused by COVID-19 largely disruptes the program and the ways to work in master TRANS—. In this instable and complex context, students and teachers question how socially engaged art practices can take place when the contexts in which they usually intervene are temporarily shut down and when social exchanges are slowly vanishing.

This reflection reaffirmes the crucial dimension of socially engaged art practices, in order to imagine other ways to work together, to invent new roles to be played by artists in the social sphere The ongoing collaborative projects with the Veduta platform (Biennale de Lyon), with Belle-Idée (HUG, Geneva) or with the MAMCO offer the students as so many experimentation fields in order to deploy such socially engaged approaches in dialogue with different groups of people not related to the art world.

Organization
Going through diverse practices—such as situationnist, activist, interventionist or transpedagogical ones—the seminar sessions, supported partly by the teaching teamand partly by the students themselves (reading group) seek to question different alternative strategies to an individualist and competitive approach of art.

In order to stimulate exchanges and to encourage the emergence of forms of solidarities between the students, a standard week in TRANS— program is composed of three days of shared presence in the TRANS— spaces (seminars, workshops, individual or collective mentoring sessions) and of two self- managed days dedicated to the development of individual practices and collective projects.

Each student has the opportunity to get a place inside a collective working space. Apart from pursuing one’s practice
in the field of contemporary arts, TRANS— program offers professional perspectives in gallery education, artistic intervention in formal or informal educational contexts and art practices in social contexts.

Head of the program: microsillons collective (Marianne Guarino-Huet and Olivier Desvoignes)

Teaching staff: Marie-Antoinette Chiarenza, Claude-Hubert Tatot, Mathilde Chenin, Yan Duyvendak, Mabe Bethônico

Invited Speakers since 2015 (selection): Jorgge Menna Barreto, Bureau d’études, Marc Breviglieri, Isabelle Chladek, Common Interest, Kadiatou Diallo, Dias & Riedweg, Janna Graham, Axelle Grégoire, Pablo Helguera, Thomas Hirschhorn, Myriam Lefkowitz, Olivier Marboeuf, Mathieu Menghini, Carmen Mörsch, Nils Norman, Nicolás Paris, Marie Preston, Rester. Étranger, Rosabrux, Greg Sholette, Nora Sternfeld, Tilo Steireif, Wochenklausur

Conditions for admissions 2021/22
Application can only be made online under “Admissions 2021”.

After the first round of selection consisting in the examination of personal portfolios, the selected candidates will be invited to an individual interview (remote interviews are possible).