Public programme 2024

Public programme for the 2024 Salzburg International Summer Academy, School of Listening: July 22–August 31, 2024.

The Summer Academy is pleased to present their 2024 public programme. Numerous exhibitions, performances, open studios, music sets, film screenings, talks and lectures will take place during the summer months and are now available on our new website here.

Inspired by the School of Seeing founded by Oskar Kokoschka in 1953, the School of Listening is the title to the public programme developed especially for the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts by Sophie Goltz and Maayan Sheleff. The events and exhibitions emphasize the role of the human voice in media, including performance art, music, radio, and film, and invite the audience to listen differently. It probes the capacity of listening to embody conflictuality, amplify silenced narratives and challenge simplistic perspectives on identity.

The programme is a call to come together in performative and participatory frameworks, questioning the invisible borders that weave between us and define us. It is a platform to participate but also to refuse, to speak, to listen or to be silent; to collaborate or to co-resist; to temporarily (de)construct and rehearse non-homogeneous, disharmonious communities of possible dissensus; to be together as a form of negotiating differences. 

Exhibitions
School of Listening: (Im)possible Conversations
July 22–August 31, 2024
Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Old Town (Rupertinum)

The public programme School of Listening is presented alongside and in conjunction with two exhibitions: under the title School of Listening: (Im)possible Conversations, Ofri Cnaani, Thalia Hoffman, Stav Marin, Samira Saraya, Neta Weiner and Manar Zuabi will present a selection from their works at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg in interaction with works from the Generali Foundation Collection, and participate in a series of performances. 

School of Listening: (Im)possible Conversations addresses the conflictual struggles that make up relationships when they attempt to go beyond the dichotomic perceptions of identity politics. The works put forth the complexity of antagonistic dialogues and difficult collaborations, where language could become a sort of weapon, and at the same time a means of defusing the borders between one and the other via empathic recognition. 
Curated by Maayan Sheleff with Christina Penetsdorfer

You can find more information about the events accompanying the exhibition here. 

School of Listening Differently
July 22–August 30, 2024
Stadtgalerie Zwergelgartenpavilion

A second exhibition and a series of live events, under the title School of Listening Differently, are staged at the Zwergelgartenpavillon, with the participation of Ari Benjamin Meyers, Brandon LaBelle, Sunny Pfalzer and Netta Weiser. Among the works are an audio installation where one can hear choreography, a video where one could listen to sign language, a video-dance about the identity struggles of a metaphorical teenager and an invitation to sing together. 
School of Listening Differently stages performative conversations and discursive performances that imply the dual potentialities of the voice and the body –to be governed and controlled, as well as to subvert and undermine forms of governing. Entangled between the personal and the collective as well the artistic, activist and academic, it embodies a fragile and differentiated collectivity, where listening can become a form of resistance to oppression. 
Curated by Maayan Sheleff.

You can find more information about the events accompanying the exhibition here.

Further Summer Academy exhibitions and events
Philipp Gufler: Confessing Weakness
July 13–August 31, 2024 
Galerie Kunst im Traklhaus

Philipp Gufler’s works combine past and present strands of vulnerable life-worlds. His detailed study of images and stories, based on archives, radio and TV recordings, literature and pop culture, proves to be a sensitive strategy for exploring various kinds of relationships. Central to this is the careful examination of non-conformist sexuality and gender awarness. He works with diverse narrations and media, such as silk-screen printing on fabric or mirrors, video-instal-lations, performance and artist’s books. 
His artistic-activist approach deals specifically with the contradictions in the documentation of chronological events and historical personalities. In doing so, Philipp Gufler also negotiates his body as the subject of numerous inscriptions and thus the risk of his own vulnerability.
Curated by Sophie Goltz and Niklas Koschel

Sunset Kino
The long-standing collaboration with the Salzburg Kunstverein is continued with three film screenings curated by Summer Academy teaching artists. This year, Neha Choksi, Sarker Protick and Karol Radziszewski will each give a presentation. 

Open Studios
For the Open Studios, the teaching artists and their students from the art classes invite the public to tours, film presentations, performances and conversations – offering a rare opportunity to visit the Fortress and the Untersberg quarry, and to experience the exceptional ambience of the various art laboratories.

Music Sets
The music programme entitled Criss-Cross, curated by Zosia Holubowska, will be presented in the Zwergelgarten pavilion on three Fridays, and as part of the opening event. 

Contact information: office [​at​] summeracademy.at.