20 May 2010

Master of Arts in Public Spheres - Ecole cantonale d'art du Valais in Sierre, Switzerland: Call for Applications

The MAPS – Art in Public Spheres program is a HES-SO Masters course in visual arts addressed to artists, actors and actresses of the artistic world wishing to pursue or to initiate investigation of the artist's relation to the public sphere, which is considered in this situation as being a social, political and cultural space. The course offers a practical and theoretical platform meant to question the force of context, its influence on artistic production, to understand the dialectic and critical relationship of an artist with a given environment, to explore conditions for exhibiting an artistic work and its relationship with the space of artistic intervention. In Sierre, an Alpine town with an industrial history, the course finds options for specific work and reflection. The location, characterized by its striking natural environment and its ex-centric location, is an ideal site for detailed on-the-ground studies of themes such as reflection around environmental art, artistic and curatorial interventions in the public space, the dialectic between peripheral and centralized regions, between ex-centric contexts and urban realities.

The network of HES-SO Masters of Visual Arts studies has been designed around three sites: the Haute Ecole d'Art du Valais (ECAV) in Sierre, the Haute Ecole d'Art et de Design in Geneva (HEAD) and the Ecole Cantonale d'Art in Lausanne (ECAL). Each school offers specific areas for in-depth studies:

MAPS – Arts in Public Spheres , ECAV, Sierre
WORK.MASTER – Contemporary artistic practices, HEAD, Geneva
TRANS – Teaching mediation, HEAD, Geneva
CCC – Critical Curatorial Cybermedia, HEAD, Geneva
European Art Ensemble, ECAL, Lausanne

Program - teaching
The MAPS – Arts in Public Spheres program offers 120 ECTS credits. It is a two-year course with classes two days a week, alternating seminars and workshops led by artists, theoreticians and curators, with visits and development of individual and collective exhibition projects. Students thus devote 60 – 70% of their formation time to their own work. They are supervised by two tutors throughout their entire course. The end of their studies is focused on their Masters Thesis.

Individual work, encounters and exchanges with artists and professionals from the art world constitute an important part of the course. Workshops furnished with computer and technical equipment are available and students also learn to manage the MAPS container, a mobile exhibition and experimentation unit.