Responsibility and Response-ability: On the Art of Sharing Research and Reshaping Futures in Central and Eastern Europe

The aim of the publication is to examine and review the current state of artistic research practices in Central and Eastern Europe with regard to the question of responsibility and civic engagement.

In Central and Eastern Europe, the intensity of the polemics about artistic methods of knowledge production and knowledge transfer have corresponded with a limited process of institutionalization and academization of artistic research. Conferences, journals, publications, PhD programs, and regulatory agencies dedicated to artistic research are relatively rare in these parts of Europe. At the same time, artistic research has become a common strategy widely disseminated within individual and collective artistic and curatorial practices. This gap between the omnipresence of artistic research and a relative lack of regulatory discourses and instruments can be characterized as a factor shaping a specific epistemic position for contemporary artistic knowledge production in Central and Eastern Europe. If artistic research practices do not participate to a large extent in the affirmation of neoliberal control regimes (accreditation, evaluation, monitoring) or in the promotion of neoliberal notions of knowledge as an exchangeable commodity, this situation of lack of regulation opens up a question of responsibility.

Since artists and other cultural workers who operate from and within the region are transnationally networked and trained, and produce and disseminate research in several places beyond Central and Eastern Europe, it is not our aim to define a specific collective regional position on artistic research. Rather, we are concerned with critically questioning the actually existing educational practices, social and political framework, and conditions that shape the processes, technologies and infrastructures of artistic knowledge production in the region. We are interested in an opportunity to articulate regionally specific concerns and challenges that result in the localized practices and languages of artistic research.

One of the aims of the publication is to critically examine the interface between artistic research and educational practices in Central and Eastern Europe and ask questions about responsibility in connection with artistic research, understood as a working method, an educational strategy, and a mode of production of art. We are interested in contributions discussing artistic educational practices inside and outside the art academy in the context of the relationship between civic interest and artistic research:

• How can we learn and unlearn with the tools developed within artistic research?
• Should artistic research be taught from the centre of the art academy, or from its edges, corridors and cellars?
• What tools and instructional methods are there for teaching artistic research?

Another set of questions we want to investigate relates to the specific local traditions and conditions of artistic research in relation to the question of civic engagement, which includes a reflection on possible strategies researchers can adopt to conduct responsive and responsible artistic research. We are interested in articles dealing with the following questions:

• How to identify the social needs for which artistic research is formatted?
• How can artistic research make a significant and meaningful contribution to society?
• What are the responsible ways of sharing artistic research (research results)?
• How can we establish ethical relationships between the researcher and the researched (in the case of research involving other people and non-human persons)?

We invite art researchers as well as academics, activists, and curators engaged with artistic research in Central and Eastern Europe to propose embedded case studies as well as theoretical texts.

Abstracts of 300 words, plus a brief speaker bio of c. 100 words, should be submitted to kultura.​wizualna@​asp.​waw.​pl

Accepted contributions will be subject to peer review.

Deadline for Abstracts: 10.05. 2022

Acceptance of Abstracts: 15.05 2022

Submission Deadline: 20.07.2022