Curating Diversity 2020

Decolonizing Contemporary Music

The symposium "Curating Diversity in Europe", taking place on- and offline, offers a platform for keeping the discourse on diversity in contemporary music in Europe alive, developing potentials for transformation during a time of limited international encounters and swelling nationalistic currents. The focus of the symposium is on processes and profiles of curating that critically question power structures and eurocentric patterns of thought, to implement political, collective or participatory strategies in the curatorial decision-making process. Keynotes by Du Yun and Sandeep Bhagwati will be followed by panel discussions on emancipation, decolonisation and "looted music".

The symposium is planned in a hybrid format. All content (keynotes, panels, chats and networking) will be transmitted live to onsite participants at the Akademie der Künste, and simultaneously via internet to an online audience; content will continue to be accessible after the symposium as online video documentation. With this hybrid format, we want to strengthen the international networking and at the same time enable personal meetings.

Partner

The symposium is a project of "Sounds Now", a European network dedicated to promoting more diversity and inclusion in contemporary music and sound art, in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste Berlin, inm / field notes and Ultima festival in Oslo.

Media partner:

VAN outernational

Here you can find the recording of the keynotes and panels as well as some texts:

Keynote: Sandeep Bhagwati »Curating Musicking as a Mode of Wakefulnes

Sandeep Bhagwati: Curating Musicking as a Mode of Wakefulness in Interesting Times

Composer and scholar Sandeep Bhagwati gave the keynote address at the conference: "Curating Musicking as a Mode of Wakefulness in Interesting Times".

Programm »Curating Diversity«

The symposium Curating Diversity in 2020 fell in the middle of the pandemic and therefore had to be planned in a hybrid way. The advantage today is that the entire programme of various keynotes and panels has been recorded and can be viewed here.

George E. Lewis New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult

My brief but memorable collaboration with the sound art collective Ultra-Red at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012 considered this question: “What is the sound of freedom?” I was reminded of this when I read an interesting interview with meLê yamomo in Outernational: “Wie klingt...

Speaker »Curating Diversity«

Among the speakers at "Curating Diversity" were international artists and academics such as Du Yun, Elaine Mitchener, George E. Lewis, meLê yamomo and Sharif Sehnaoui.

For further reading

Diversity and Decolonisation

In the past few years, field notes has organised numerous conferences and further education courses on the topics of anti-racism and diversity development as well as the decolonisation of contemporary music. Many of the events were able to be documented on video or in writing and can be vi...

Curating Diversity 2020

Decolonizing Contemporary Music

Here you can find the recording of the keynotes and panels as well as some texts:

Sandeep Bhagwati: Curating Musicking as a Mode of Wakefulness in Interesting Times

Programm »Curating Diversity«

George E. Lewis New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult

Speaker »Curating Diversity«

Bildgalerie Curating Diversity

For further reading

Diversity and Decolonisation

Programm »Curating Diversity«

What Does Freedom Sound Like?

Soundings