JEANNE VAN HEESWIJK
Field Of Interactions

Building intersectional alliances towards becoming collective.

Keywords: Collective forms, public space, performative actions, new organizations forms, field of interaction.






Artists for Artists Masterclass November 26-30, 2020

The Institutional Collapse

For its second edition, AfA Masterclass proceeds with the proposition that institutions have no intrinsic value in society. At a tipping point, communities worldwide are ‘on the march’ - protesting issues including economic collapse, structural racism, forms of colonialism, ecological disaster, corruption, and femicide. In the face of this, institutions appear increasingly anemic, many buckling under the economic and political strain. Others are facing intensified scrutiny for amplifying structural disadvantage and failing to serve community needs.

Is it time to rebuild, resuscitate, or raze?

The new edition of the AfA Masterclass addresses the now overdue, and indeed urgent task, of reconsidering the ethics, processes, and essential purpose of institutions. We recognize that essentially art institutions rely on artists and communities in order to function, and yet they are the very people they often overlook and exploit. This Masterclass asks what are art institutions without artists? What novel forms of artistic practice can germinate through this institutional failure and precarity? And, what new forms of personal and collective agency can be engendered through art practice?

The second edition of the AfA Masterclass Series: Institutional Collapse will focus on:

Decoloniality: museums, governance, collections, structure, archives, marginalized histories and knowledge systems, institutional co-option

Activism: community, collectives, networks, safety, infrastructure, solidarity

Care/Repair: memory, modalities of engagement, language, training, access, lived experience, radical forms of care, preservation.

The Institutional Collapse led by Advising Artists including: Noah Fischer, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon (MTL Collective), Vivien Sansour . Each Advising Artist will present a lecture and a workshop engaging the theme of Institutional Collapse as it relates to experimental interdisciplinary artistic practices.

The International AfA Masterclass is an open pedagogical platform, characterized by experimentation, inclusivity, and global outreach. Its modalities and praxis are informed by an ethos of solidarity and an equitable peer-to-peer model. The Institutional Collapse is developed by the AfA Core.