SCôP Photo Club | Online Public Education Talks Ⅰ

Higher Arts Education in NL: Art/Emotional Practices as Group Learning

Lecturer: Gu Jiatu

Born in 1992, Jiatu Gu graduated with double master’s degrees in arts from Dutch Art Institute and London College of Communication, UAL. My research follows the line of the Deleuzian vitalistic differential ontology. On the one hand, it is a critique of empire and fascism, more importantly, it tries to explore collectivities that are based on the economy of AFFECT, it is experimentations and imaginaries of “living together”. 

Currently, he is doing art practices as a curator/organizer, using the space - Imaginary Z as a platform. Imaginary Z is a shapeshifting monster, its tentacles are assembled with ever- expanding and ever-escaping semantics - decolonial, anti-fascist, difference, intersectional, intersectional, feminist, queering⋯ it acts with a posture that is richer, stronger, more affirmative, more active and more beautiful. 

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speculative study

Program:Kitchen

Speculative Study is a critical response to the structure of Western art education initiated by contemporary art researcher, curator, and institutional organizer Gu Jiatu. It is often taken that higher education provides a way for self-actualization and lays grounds for navigating a practical career path. Yet, we still want to ask if a certain kind of collective wish exists somewhere (it has indeed always existed somewhere), where learning has nothing to do with these concerns but interrelates to collective progress. In other words, how to be together. It is a kind of collectivity based on AFFECT and brings out experimentations and imaginaries of coexistence that bonds us together. Taking his personal experiences studying at London College of Communication, UAL, and the Dutch Art Institute as the anchor, Gu will map out and sail along the streams of active learning, thinking, practices and innovation.  

Lecturer: He Bo

Born in 1989 in Sichuan Province, China, He Bo is a practitioner of photographic image-based art, writer, educator and curator. 

He Bo's past artistic practice is mainly concerned with the re-creation of ready-made images and its theories, the narrative relationship between images and texts, the barriers to communication in the context of war, disaster and violence, the fictionality of archives and memory, and the function and effect of photographic images in the construction of history and the operation of power. Collaboration with others and the participation of audiences are important aspects of He Bo's practice.

website: https://hebo.photography 

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MAPS: Master‘s Education outside the Exhibition Space

The MAPS class of 2021 students in the exhibition “Countercurrents” in an abandoned bunker

Based on his experience, He Bo will introduce the structure and specialties of the master’s program Photography & Society (MAPS) offered at the Royal Academy of the Art, The Hague (KABK). In addition to sharing how the thesis project of the previous year’s graduates put into practice the core values and concepts of the program, He Bo will also bring attention to the collective created project Countercurrents by current students. A brief reflection on the pros and cons of the teaching methods at KABK will be presented for the reference of Chinese institutions.