Going to a Conference: In Character
30–31 January 2021
So, we – Index and PRAKSIS, and our respective Teen Advisory Boards – are holding an online Conference: In Character. We wish to invoke the collective spirit behind the word conference, of conferring; bringing together, deliberating and reflecting as a group. Join us as we use listening, discussion and play to critically examine and re-imagine the social constructions connected to exhibition spaces.
Going to a Conference: In Character offers an opportunity to stream into the process stage of the broader ongoing project, In Character, which looks at how we are expected to behave in arts spaces – considering the language, policies and structures that underpin these norms. The project is informed by worldbuilding methodologies found in LARP (Live Action Role Play), where the players themselves first sit together to define the rules of their new fictional world. Going to a Conference: In Character takes this prompt as its starting point, using the play of a ‘Conference’ to collectively map out the social scores we experience and ask how the use of fiction, radical imagination and roleplay can help us propose new ways of going to an exhibition.
For full program: Visit the In Character website
Going to a Conference: In Character
Saturday 30 January, (non-public)
On day one, Index and PRAKSIS Teen Advisory Boards, together with young delegates engaged with SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen), claim the comfort of a non-public setting to gather, meet, share and world-build together.
Meeting online, we will discuss in-the-flesh experiences from the earlier workshop series, Going to an exhibition in Character. The knowledge shared will be a starting point to work with speculative formats to push social rules and co-write scenarios that we can perform as a group: in character, online or IRL. These will be the first steps in formulating a collective Game Manual of future workshop proposals.
Going to a Conference: In Character
31 Jan, 10:00-17:00
Day two welcomes you to stream in as part of a wider audience of online characters, publics, hosts and ghosts. Teen Advisory Board members will host the day’s online discussions, talks and screenings: with the aim of opening up the challenges and questions raised during earlier In Character workshops.
Inviting you to follow talks by the Teen Advisory Board and guest speaker Temi Odumosu, the second day offers spaces to reflect on how we can re-imagine the social complexities of the exhibition room. Through World of Questions, Collective De-briefs and Guided Meditations, we hope to look at underlying structures as they are now, and together grasp for ways we can untangle and destabilize its normality.
How to join the stream?
The conference needs no RSVP as we are navigating our double online/offline realities through the game streaming site Twitch at www.twitch.tv/indexfoundation
Here you will be able to visit different discussion rooms in World of Questions, be mindful of your digital characters in Guided Meditations and listen to conversations with the Teen Advisory Boards and guest speaker Temi Odumosu.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook or visit the project website to get updates on the Worlds of Questions and let us know if you have questions of your own.
Visit the website
As part of the Nordic collaboration project In Character, Index have built a dedicated online platform, both an ongoing documentation and resource – here you can find the schedule for Day 2 of the Conference, open to the public, the future Game Manual as well as information about Index and Praksis’ Teen Advisory Boards, and how to connect with the projects’ organizers and collaborators.
Click here to follow the project and find out how you can Go to a Conference: In Character.
Collaboration between Teen Advisory Boards
In Character is a project developed with Index and PRAKSIS Teen Advisory Boards, mapping out the social norms of our respective art scenes. In collaboration with teenagers connected to SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen, the project levels by transforming our observations into new formations.
About the boards: Teen Advisory Boards provide paid positions that place the reflective, critical voices of young people right at the centre of organisations. Bringing together a variety of backgrounds and life experiences, groups take experimental and critical approaches to the role and potential of art and culture today.
Starting at Index in 2016 and at PRAKSIS in 2019, Teen Advisory Boards actively support decision-making, evaluation and programming. Through collective discussion, they propose projects and strategies for increasing young access to institutions. Going to an exhibition: In Character is one such project, starting as a recurring workshop format, it has now grown into a larger framework – inviting others to approach exhibition spaces in character.
PRAKSIS Teen Advisory Board 2020/2021: Sadia Hassan, Nellie Barazandeh, Mikkel Inchley, Sumaya Elmi, Annine Slettebø, Noah Gylver, Hannah Røsholt Siger, Zeinab Al-khatib, Nasteha Hassan Mahamed
Index Teen Advisory Board 2019/2020: Yosra Ali, José Valesquez Esteban, Leo Queiroz Gonzalez, Alfred Nilsson, Maryan Mohammed, Alva Mårsén, Aqueel Raffa, Leo Ramirez Iderström and Lovisa Jonsson
Index Teen Advisory Board 2021/2022: Malin Issa, Waffa Mohammed, Felix Krauz Sjöberg, José Valesquez Esteban, Adina Edfeldt, Emil Pita, Simon Sjöberg and Sarika Ullah.
Temi Odumosu is an art historian, curator, and senior lecturer in Cultural Studies at Malmö University in Sweden. She wants to make the world a more open, vibrant, and sensitive place for authentic connection, and she believes that art can help to create it. But how do we get there? Temi started by first facing the history of visual culture during slavery and colonialism, and explored how racial thinking was installed into images. Her research also pays attention to the ways these ideas and stereotyping practices continue into the present day. Furthermore, she is trying to figure out how to contextualise colonial collections, and how not to retraumatise people, now that everything is being digitised and going online.
This project is curated and organized by Index Curator of Learning Emmeli Person in dialogue with Index and Praksis team and Teen Advisory Board members. It is generously supported by Nordic Culture Point 0-30 grant. PRAKSIS Teen Advisory Board is supported by Norske Kulturrådet and Sparebankstiftelsen DNB. Index is supported by Kulturrådet (Swedish Arts Council), Stockholm Stad and Stockholm Region.