Academics, artists, teachers, and activists from various backgrounds are welcome to attend this international and multidisciplinary conference - In-Between: Art, Education, and Politics in the Post-Welfare State. The conference takes place over four days and in two locations: Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden.
The task of the conference is to map, investigate and contest art and its education as sociopolitical practices in the contemporary Nordic societies. Although the Nordic countries are still, at least partially, drawing from the ideals of the welfare state in their cultural and educational politics, the pressures to reform and rethink the Nordic social democracy are constantly growing. These pressures derive from the different sides of the political and economical spectrum: neoliberal capitalism, neo-nationalism, and social movements that challenge more traditional sociopolitical organizations. In this respect, the lateness of the current welfare societies denotes a perplexing feeling of being in-between the structures of the past and the demands of the future.
In their varied contexts, art and its education have served as realms where alternative social and political projects can be imagined and practiced. Their histories as sociopolitical activities are deeply entwined: in education, the integration of art in schools has a historical status as an essential component of a comprehensive education and, more recently, the art world and its institutions have turned to education as a strategy of rethinking their role in the society. However, the blurring boundaries of life, work, and education that characterizes the so-called post-Fordist labor of contemporary capitalism has meant that the alternative worlds that art and its education open remain merely as subtle variations of the existing societal imperatives for an active, entrepreneurial life.
The program consists of invited keynote speakers, presentation panels, discussions groups, and artistic activities, curated by Checkpoint Helsinki and Tensta Konsthall.
Checkpoint Helsinki's contribution to the conference is to Pan African Space Station, running simultaneously at the Kallio Library in Helsinki, and will widen the conference's Nordic focus to a global perspective. Curators Ahmed Al-Nawas and Christopher Wessels have invited South African musicians Dope Saint Jude and Angel Ho to perform in Helsinki together with Koko Hubara as part of the program of the conference, on 14.4.2016.
In-Between is organized by Aalto University, Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design and Iceland Academy of the Arts together with Checkpoint Helsinki and Tensta Konsthall. The project is supported by Nordplus Horizontal Program on behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers
Registration and program details: inbetween2016.org