Future Ancestry – Impactful Storytelling in the Visual Arts

The Forum and two-part seminar looks at how speculative storytelling, hybrid identities, and interdisciplinary research and artworks can engage with and reformulate the past to address pressing issues of our time.

The seminar invites participants to reflect on what it means to highlight or reframe the past to stimulate readiness for the future and create a space for imagination, transformation, and ultimately critical hope. It will look at selected artworks and artistic practices by Eli Cortinas, Josefa Ntjam, Yael Bartana, Justin Kennedy, Kristy Nataraja, Ersan Mondtag, Jacob Kudsk Steensen, Melanie Bonajo, Clara Sika Helbro, Lawrence Lek, Mykola Ridnyi, and/or Mikey Woodbridge, among others, and delve into relevant theories and discuss conceptual tools that can help arrive at a more refined understanding of the questions raised.

The overall aim of the seminar is to bring together a group of committed academics, artists, and practitioners to build a shared understanding of an emerging area of curatorial and artistic practice centered on imagining pasts and futures, using various research and creative methods such as forensic architecture, social design, collage, machine learning, and performative activation.

• Copenhagen | 28 Apr – 30 Apr 2025 | University of Copenhagen

Three seminar days with readings, lectures, and contributions from instructors, participants, and guest speakers such as Clara Sika, Eli Cortiñas, and Josefa Ntjam.

• Berlin | 16 Jun – 18 Jun 2025 | UDK & JUNGE AKADEMIE
  

Studio visits, presentations, and discussions focusing on current artistic and curatorial practices, including the intersection of art and AI (JUNGE AKADEMIE). The program concludes with a visit to the newly opened Berlin Biennale.

Organized by: Solvej Helweg Ovesen

Contributors: Clara Herrmann (JUNGE AKADEMIE), Mykola Ridniy (UDK Berlin), Eli Cortiñas, Kristy Nataraja, Thomias Radin, Justin Kennedy, Maya Indira Ganesh (Cambridge University).

A collaboration between PASS – Center for Practice-based Art Studies, University of Copenhagen & Die JUNGE AKADEMIE, Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

Further information & participation terms: [Future Ancestry - Impactful Storytelling in the Visual Arts – University of Copenhagen]