6th Nida Doctoral School:
Documentary Practices: New Perspectives On Old Issues

23–28 August

Nida Art Colony (NAC) of Vilnius Academy of Arts
E. A. Jonušo str. 3
LT-93127 Nida
Lithuania



The Nida Doctoral School (NDS) comprises an intensive one-week programme for DA and PhD candidates in visual and performing arts, design, architecture and spatial practices, media, as well as the humanities and social sciences. NDS is structured to provide opportunities for doctoral candidates to present, discuss, and share their individual research in a collegial setting with formal and informal discussions, group and individual consultations, and tutoring. Questions and modes of presentation pertinent to the individual research of each participant are the central element of the summer school in Nida. 

The common threads of the 2021 iteration of the course are documentary practices in use today. NDS aims to focus on research that reconsiders the conditions and purpose of documentary practices invested in politics, particularly those that contest existing narratives and consider the impact of recent technological, historical, and political developments and relations.

NDS is eager to bring together researchers working in an expanded field of documentary, with a multifold of formats and developing practices that open up new perspectives and produce new forms and types of what can be considered “a document”: the materialisation of factual information, the providing of records, and the reminding and representation of historical and political connections. This includes practices that propose and establish new conjunctions and correlations, shake up persistent, old issues, and shed light on those that have been repressed in order to capture, convey, construct, and insist on truth.

We are interested to assess in today’s terms the documentary from the viewpoint of its political agency and its role and potential of not only producing new knowledge, but supporting the movements invested in transforming this world towards a more just and liveable one. NDS seeks participation from doctoral candidates who are working with: spatial practices, exemplified through case studies, mapping, or employing materials from established archives; studying cultural processes; investigating material inscriptions, structures, and infrastructures; decoding everyday matters and settled daily procedures.

The curator and organiser of NDS 2021 is Egija Inzule, director of Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts.  

Partners

In 2021 NDS is co-funded and co-organised in collaboration with five partnering universities:

Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
University of the Arts London
University of the Arts Helsinki
Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
Vilnius Academy of Arts
a
Following an open call three participants were selected to join the course from:
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Vienna University of Technology
Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
George Enescu National University of Arts in Bucharest

Tutors and Speakers

Dr. Mika Elo
Dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius
Dr. Joanne Morra
Dr. Sofia Pantouvaki
Dr. Deimantas Narkevičius
Dr. Sarah Owens
Dr. Ines Weizman

Participants

Anousheh Kehar – Vienna University of Technology
Oana Nechifor – George Enescu National University of Arts, Bucharest
Katarina Blomqvist – Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki
Ksenia Kaverina – Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki
Iana Stefanova – University of the Arts London
Marija Puipaitė – Vilnius Academy of Arts
Monika Dirsytė – Vilnius Academy of Arts
Jānis Glockneris – Vilnius Academy of Arts
Vytautas Gečas – Vilnius Academy of Arts
Leena Kela – University of the Arts Helsinki
Miklos Gaál – University of the Arts Helsinki
Matthew Cowan – University of the Arts Helsinki
Ujjwal Utkarsh – Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna