Sandeep Bhagwati »Curating Musicking as a Mode of Wakefulness in Interesting Times« Keynote

Curating Diversity in Europe. Decolonizing Contemporary Music

25 September, 2020 | Ultima Festivals Oslo / Akademie der Künste / field notes

©Stefanie Kulisch

»In my talk, I want to stay close to the question of curating with decolonization and contemporary musicking in mind. But I am deeply convinced that all these aspects that have started to eat away at the once so magnificent cloud castle of contemporary eurological art music making are inseparable from each other – when we start to address one, we will time and again discover that we actually need to address all of them. In the Anthropocene, we must realize there is no outside for us to flee too, no separation we can sustain - that in fact there is nowhere humans can go to escape other humans, that the only thing we can do is to ›stay with the trouble‹ as Donna Haraway has put it.«

The keynote of Sandeep Bhagwati is part of the symposium "Curating Diversity in Europe. Decolonizing Contemporary Music", which took place on September 25 2020 in Akademie der Künste Berlin and online. "Curating Diversity in Europe" 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 eurological patterns of thought, to implement political, collective or participatory strategies in the curatorial decision-making process. 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.

Die gesamte Keynote zum nachlesen

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".

– Sandeep Bhagwati

Sandeep Bhagwati ist Komponist, Kurator, Professor an der Faculty of Fine Arts an der Concordia Universität Montreal.

For further reading

Studio für Elektroakustische Musik_zeitgenössische Musik Berlin

The Studio for Electroacoustic Music

The Studio for Electroacoustic Music at the Akademie der Künste has a long tradition as a forum and laboratory for experimental sound art.

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...

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.

Curating Diversity 2020

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 cu...