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How can curatorial and artistic practices foster social and political change?
This course explores the concepts and methods of socially engaged and community-based art projects that have a political impact, both within and beyond the art world.


Over five weeks, we will explore how artists and curators can build infrastructures of solidarity and change by embracing self-organisation, horizontality, exchange, and knowledge-building. You will learn how art projects can engage with communities by integrating social research principles into curatorial and artistic work. Through case studies from the arts, education, and activist initiatives, you will understand how social injustice operates and how collective artistic projects can drive empowerment and disruption.


By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Apply strategies of socially engaged art into your curatorial and artistic practice.
  • Develop curatorial approaches that foster community participation and political impact.
  • Design projects that emphasize collaboration and solidarity.
  • Recognize the potential of artistic and curatorial work to empower communities and challenge dominant structures.

This course is led by the Creative Association of Curators TOK, an international curatorial duo founded by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits in 2010. Working at the intersection of contemporary art, the social sciences, architecture and socially-oriented design, TOK will draw on their extensive experience with socially engaged projects to provide both practical tools and theoretical frameworks for curators and artists seeking to inspire political change through artistic projects.


Photo: Wylly Suhendra via Unsplash

*Prices include VAT

Video conferences on Wednesdays from 3pm to 5pm Berlin Time CEST. Recordings will be available in case you miss a live session!

Week 1: Introduction. This is a one-hour welcome session. The lecturer will present the course program and participants will present themselves. No prior preparation is necessary.


Week 2: Self-organisation

  • How to start an art institution or curatorial collective
  • Horizontality, collectivity, kinship, practices exchange and knowledge-building
  • How to build up a network with institutions, artists, and other creatives
  • Building relations and collaborating with different communities


Week 3: Research

  • Methodology of curatorial analysis and response to social and political transformations
  • How to integrate principles of sociological research into curatorial work
  • How to work across disciplines and with contributions from different fields of knowledge
  • Studying the locality and positioning yourself in given conditions


Week 4: Empowering political interventions

  • Art as a tool for political awareness and media literacy
  • Artistic interventions into the state educational system
  • Empowerment of young citizens through art and activism


Week 5: Disruptive political interventions

  • Public space and architecture as indicators of changing political ideology
  • Methodologies for reclaiming public spaces by citizens
  • Borders and the notion of geopolitical divisions
  • Challenging the concept of citizenship
  • New formats of migration and artistic nomadism

We will use Zoom for the live video conferences, please check Zoom's technical requirements here.


Closed captioning will be available during the video conference.

The Creative Association of Curators TOK

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