The educational program aims to encourage an intensive dialogue between artists, scholars, students, curators, critics and the general public in order to allow a discursive involvement towards artistic, theoretical and curatorial approaches. The different formats of the educational program will examine the heterogeneous approaches and deconstructions of an «objective» reality as it is apparent in the artistic productions of the young generation of artists.

The workshops will involve renowned international artists to teach both technical and theoretical approaches to art students and young artists. The invited artists come from a broad variety of contemporary art practices such as videoand film-art, photography, performance and installation art. Their practice deals with the construction of images and identities as one of their focuses. They illuminate the reflex of the constructions of reality, virtuality and their incorporations with contemporary constructions of identity: Identities appear as flexible and multiple while ethnic, genderrelated, cultural and social affiliations get dissolved and are being described as fragmentary and preliminary within works of contemporary art practice. Fragments of different pictorial realities get adapted and combined in new forms, e.g. foundfootage from films and television, virtually produced and digitally manipulated images and documentary footage being used as elements of an alleged «reality», or amateur footage as elements of layers of an alleged private sphere to create new narrations and to advance alternative perceptions of the world. In the workshops, the artists will investigate—together with their classes—both the theoretical approaches, perceptions, and examinations of realities in their works as well as their technical implementations.

The round-table discussions will gather international and Russian professionals from different fields of the art system and will provide an interdisciplinary exchange about relevant questions of contemporary art practice as well as a variety of contemporary discourses. The round-table discussions are planned to encourage an active participation of the public. The educational program will conclude with a screening and a lecture.
Kathrin Becker

Workshops:
Bridget Baker (London), Shahram Entekhabi (Berlin/Tehran), Niklas Goldbach (Berlin), Re´my Markowitsch (Berlin/Zurich)

Round table discussion: The multiplicity of reality in contemporary art practice

This discussion will focus on topics such as the prominence of examinations of identities in flux or virtuality in the art practice of the young generation of artists, collaborative working, and the relevance of «truth».

Participants: Julia Draganovic (curator, Modena), Ekaterina Degot (curator, Moscow), Christopher Eamon (curator, writer, New York), Kathy Rae Huffmann (curator, Long Beach / Berlin), Olga Shishko (curator, Moscow).

Moderation: Alexei Maslyaev (art-critic, MMOMA researcher, Moscow).

Round table discussion: Reality fights back: Drastic shifts in economy and politics and the consequences for contemporary art practice

This discussion will investigate the impact of political and economic realities within artistic practice and will deal with topics such as neo-liberalism, conditions of precarity, urbanity and gentrification, ecology and sustainability, possible forms of counter-strategies and the advancement of young art as well as the meaning of art institutions as active parts of intermediation and education, and contemporary models of institutional practices and institutional critique.

Participants: Adrienne Goehler (Curator, Berlin), Melentie Pandilovski (Director, Video Pool Video Arts Centre, Winnipeg), Aneta Szylak (Director, Wyspa, Gdansk), Dmitry Vilensky (artist, member of Chto delat?, St. Petersburg).

Moderation: Alexei Maslyaev (art-critic, MMOMA researcher, Moscow).

Screening

The screening is focusing on tendencies of transcending subjective reality in the video practice of a young generation.

Curator: Alfred Rotert (Director, European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück).

Lecture: The Artist as a Producer

The lecture investigates the role of the artist or the curator as the producer of an exhibition, including practical aspects of realization.

Lecturer: Thomas Werner (Professor, Parsons the New School for Design, New York)