Manifesta 6 School, Call for applications

The Manifesta 6 School is the central project of Manifesta 6, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, which will take place in Nicosia from 23 September to 17 December 2006. The School is both the site and the content of the Biennial, and is its sole activity. Conceived and developed by the curators of Manifesta 6, Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle and Florian Waldvogel, the School will offer three thematic transdisciplinary departments comprising lecture series, publications, screenings, performances, exhibitions, radio and TV programmes, workshops and other activities.

DEPARTMENT I

Influenced by a broad range of critical thinkers including Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and inspiring cultural producers as diverse as Laibach, Eyal Weizman, Jerome Bel and Jacques Tati, this department will look at agency and modes of participation within the cultural field on the socio-political scale. It will address the mechanisms employed by power structures such as public institutions, academia, media and corporations, and examine architecture as a significant ideological force. Within this framework, the department advances creative production as a means of individual and social empowerment.

DEPARTMENT II

The topics of this department include: 'What's Left?'—why and how advanced culture aligns itself with the politics of progress; 'Poetics of Circulation', which considers the ethical/aesthetic value of inserting poetics and subjectivity into the classical Marxist equation; and 'Recording Nothing', an inquiry into how contemporary artistic and literary works that refer to documents can reveal the withdrawal of what we think is still there after a surpassing disaster. The advisors for this department include: Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Walid Raad, Martha Rosler, Jalal Toufic and Tirdad Zolghadr.

DEPARTMENT III

This department focuses on knowledge production by looking at the methods by which new meanings are produced and disseminated, and at the social and economic transformations induced by movement, both literal and metaphorical. It will look specifically at Cyprus as a case study of complex political reality and location. It will address the bipolarity of nature and nurture within the context of contemporary society in relation to new technologies and examine the language of science as a defining social force in understanding contemporary life on both the individual and social level.

The deadline for the application is 1 March 2006, and the invited participants will be notified by 30 March 2006. There is no fee for participation in the School but participants are responsible for their own living expenses. In some cases, financial support may be available. Check the Manifesta 6 website regularly for updates. Please note that all aspects of the Manifesta 6 School program are subject to change without notice. Manifesta 6 is organised by Nicosia for Art Ltd., member of the Nicosia Municipality, and the International Foundation Manifesta. Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art is initiated and co-produced by the International Foundation Manifesta, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Download the application form from

http://neme.org/main/304/manifesta-6-school-2006call