[Preparation]
For this session please:
- look at what has been already posted on ARC website (see the ‘about’ section, it has all the statements each of us made some years ago), and write down the most important/meaningful things for you as an ARC member.
- think about our mission (our purpose, function, objectives in society, our community) and vision (our direction as a foundation and our potential impact in the world).
Adri, Anna, Anke, Inbal, Simona (minutes)
Adri
Reason for this meeting - we are a foundation fore more than a years time to improve our mission and vision. When we write proposals for funding its a question we encounter. We have tests on the website. These need to be made stronger. Board meeting at the end of the year - the board kept asking for this. For clarity what we stand for.
Anna
What we will do in the coming 10 minutes is a visioning exercise. I have not guided one before, bare with me. It comes from.. and experienced this before. We will not develop a plan. Its a visioning exercise. I will ask you to close your eyes. Maybe you mute yourself. It can be daunting to figure a vision a mission or maybe difficult. Next year, in five years and 25 years.
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SHARING
Simona (Adri's notes)
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Inbal
It weird how it was easier for me to imagine the 25 years mark, more than the 1 year mark. In general I have been thinking about foundation as a physical thing - being rooted in place and time. In 25 years we don't know how the world will look like. Maybe ARC somehow will create this space between the academy and the self-initiated. Art/Science laboratory or something. Artistic research oscillates between the art and the science which can be confusing. In 25 years it could be a place, but it can also be a body of people that do stuff and take root in different places and wherever they are they connect to a local network. I hope in 5 years we will at least be rooted in a physical space where people can come and connect to us. Like a library - but not a library. Where people can come and encounter. In one year, who knows. Maybe have more seasonal events. Twice a year or more to know it's there and it will happen and we will find our way there.
Adri
Was nice to do. At some point things came. I was imagining the coming year in the things we already started and worked on last year. That they somehow continue - the not-knowing will manifest in the next year, maybe a new symposium. Also the working together there. Also the ARC being more connected to local organisation, doing projects together. An artistic residency or a working period. Being more connected. To try it out and make an interesting program. That's where I started to take off, thinking about five years, that we manage to be really connected to local and regional organisations. Social or environmental in a more structural collaboration. To help somehow. To really bridge this artistic research with other contexts. Also a deeper connection to the university and also the students, so that they can be a more natural part of the community, like residencies. I also see something like an annual symposium where all projects come together to show how artistic research can be a part of society. 25 years was more difficult - to see how we changed organisations with an attitude that breaks down walls between organisations, showing how you can do things together, more bottom up.
Anna
I experience that some people are easier to imagine the shorter term, for others far future is easier.
Agustin
Thinking a little bit back in connection to the first year. Towards one year thinking about formation/blossoming place. With very much this idea or drive for reach out - nearing this year. Already with quite a few activities. Coming more towards 5 year period of connection and expansion. More concrete - luna(?) has masters program - connection to students. In our case more a residency instead of exhibition. Accompanying and doing together as ARC ethos. 25 years I was thinking about how ARC becomes member of interplanetary artistic research network.
Anke
It evolved in my head while listening to everybody. What I like about ARC we are in a circle, we have different networks around us and we bring them in. Working around issues, continue - we have a specific way of working around it. How we work, we should clarify. In five years we are famous for a way of working. Gentle approach, open, if you come there you are involved. Bring in people not artists. Is what we share, like Agustin in his approach, bringing in not-artists. Now I understand what our publication should be about. In 25 years I am 85 I will need your help with the house in France. You can bring your children and grandchildren to France.
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Questions:
- What change proces do you want to be part of?
S: Ways of working together (edit>>)- embracing uncertainty - intervening in different contexts and empowering (as) communities. (For me particularly in relations to algorithmic literacy)
Anke: concretely also bring in issues of own practice - like people being locked up in institution
Inbal: Moving between institutions and being part of creating that space - and facilitating in that space. Conceptualising programs that invite others in the space.
Agustin: twofold - investigation how to bring artistic interventions into other field. Secondary how in those interventions how the arts can bring matters of literacy and sovereignty to the forefront.
Henry: I resonate with Inbal. Have structure outside of institutions. Changing the conversation completely.
Anke: We believe in certain approaches. Challenge structures and approaches. Challenging dominant power structures within universities and the academy.
Adri: I relate to the rest. Sense there are similar urges. They ways arts and artistic research are used to intervene in institutions or create a space in-between like Inbal says. To me its also about re-... the role of artistic research in society. We don't want to stay in the bubble. It's really about crossing these borders. Also like Agustin says to create structural interventions not only artistic interventions. Make really accessible and show how easy it is.
Organise another meeting and continue