MA in Visual Arts: TRANS– Socially Engaged Art Practices

The TRANS– master’s degree offers a practical and reflective framework to those who wish to develop socially engaged artistic practices (SEAP) based on forms of co- creation with people who do not define themselves as artists and whose horizon is social transformation. The master’s degree thus trains artists who are able to propose a politically situated, sustainable and ethical approach.

The term “socially engaged artistic practices” covers a variety of approaches, involving various groups of people in collaborative processes and sometimes implying forms of transpedagogy (combining art and education to create unique forms of exchange and production of knowledge) or critical gallery education.

The master’s courses allow students to be equipped to intervene as artists in social contexts, leaning on alternative, critical, feminist or anarchist pedagogies and developing a knowledge of contemporary issues
of participation, informed in particular by research on inequalities linked to gender or to social and cultural origin, on ecology(ies) or the common(s). The practices that the master’s program supports are developed over the long term in specific local contexts while integrating an awareness of planetarity.

In order to multiply intellectual and professional perspectives, the TRANS– master’s program invites artists/ cultural workers/researchers to propose dialogical teaching formats based on their research.

The pedagogy of the TRANS– master’s program recognizes the importance of praxis (the permanent interaction between theory and practice) which is implemented through collective projects—inscribed in the city and involving different groups of people – projects that are placed at the heart of the students’ course. Conviviality is a central value in the pedagogy of the TRANS– master’s program, and many moments of informal exchange are encouraged.

Organization
The teaching sessions, organized by the teaching team but also, in part, by the students themselves, seek to put to work different alternative strategies to an individualistic and productivist approach to artistic practices.

In order to encourage exchanges and to facilitate the emergence of forms of sharing and solidarity between students, a typical week consists of three days of presence (seminars, workshops, individual or group meetings) and two self-managed days (to reinforce collective projects and individual practices).

Each student has the opportunity to have a space in a collective workshop. In addition to the pursuit of a socially engaged artistic practice in diverse contexts, the master’s degree opens up professionalization prospects in cultural mediation and work in formal or informal educational contexts.

The courses are taught in French and English (translations are offered whenever possible) but a good understanding of both languages is recommended.

Ongoing program
The students are involved this year in four collective projects (in the neighborhood of l’Étang in Vernier; with
the cultural service of the city of Meyrin; with the Centre d’hébergement des Tattes in Vernier; with the Maison Rousseau et Littérature in Geneva). As every year, a reflective return on these projects will be produced by the different groups and presented in a common publication. These dialogical and collective practices, at the heart of the TRANS– master, allow us to imagine other ways of doing things, other roles to play for artists, beyond the institutions dedicated to art.

The TRANS– master’s program is currently conducting research on the notion of ecopedagogy, a pedagogy of dialogue, co-construction and care.

Teachers and guests (selection)
Team: microsillons collective (coordination), Eve Gabriel Chabanon, Claude-Hubert Tatot, Camille Sevez (assistant)
Jorgge Menna Barreto, Mabe Bethônico, Bureau d’études, Marc Breviglieri, Mathilde Chénin, Isabelle Chladek, Kadiatou Diallo, Dias & Riedweg, Berit Fischer, Futuress, Janna Graham, Axelle Grégoire, Habibitch, Pablo Helguera, Marc Herbst, Sophie Hope, Thomas Hirschhorn, Myriam Lefkowitz, Olivier Marboeuf, Mathieu Menghini, Carmen Mörsch, Pascal Nicolas-Le Strat, Nils Norman, Nicolás Paris, Benoît Piéron, Marie Preston, Greg Sholette, Nora Sternfeld, Tilo Steireif, Wochenklausur.

Online registration here and submission of a portfolio of personal work before Friday, April 3, 2023, 5pm.

Master TRANS– contact:
camille.sevez [​at​] hesge.ch (assistant) / microsillons.head [​at​] hesge.ch (coordinators). Instagram: mastertranshead.