Paradox in Granada

Meeting of the ELIA Fine Arts Section
Facultad de Bellas Artes, Granada, 24-25 June

Loosing your luggage is never a good way to start a meeting overseas but such is life. After 13 hours traveling, including a delayed flight from Heathrow, I was checking into the hotel without my bag, which was probably languishing somewhere in Madrid. What was surprising was the ‘mater-of-fact’ness with which the Iberian staff in Granada treated the 6 travelers from the same flight in the same situation, as if it was only to be expected! Later that evening, during a stroll into town, I bumped into Kevin Atherton (Dublin) and Christine Pybus (Cork) – what are the chances of that in the crowed streets of a major city…

Day 1

The first meeting wasn’t scheduled until late afternoon, which gave us time to explore the town during the day. Despite our host leaving each of us a full conference-type bag of goodies at the hotel reception we still weren’t quite sure of where we were going. So meeting at reception meant at least we’d all get lost together. As it happened, Isidro Lopez-Aparico (Granada) met us half way across Fuente del Triunfo and led us to our meeting point. Juhani Jarvinen (Lahti) was already there and before too long we were joined by Maia Mancuso and Maria-Antonietta Malleo (Palermo). Sean Cummins (Nottingham) and Enrique Martinez Leal (Cuenca) and Ana Garcia Lopez (Granada) complete the steering group for this meeting … time for business.

Paula Crabtree new rector at KHiB

Last night, we received the good news that Paula Crabtree, ELIA board member and artistic co-director of the Neu/Now Festival, has been elected Rector of the Bergen National Academy of the Arts. The announcement was already on the KHiB site this morning:

Paula Crabtree is elected new Rector at KHiB. Johan Sandborg is new Pro-Rector

Paula Crabtree has been elected as new Rector at Bergen National Academy of the Arts for the period 2010 – 2015. She got 58,4 percent of the votes. Crabtree is a qualified Artist and Anthropologist and is currently Dean of the Dept of Fine Art. Johan Sandborg, Associate Professor at Subject Area Photography, has been elected as new Pro-Rector. They will take up their new positions on 1 August 2010.

- The Academy needs a Rector that is strong, open, enthusiastic and who listens to the entire organisation. The Rector needs to continue the significant development the Academy is currently showing in art and design research, the quality of study programmes, its role in international collaboration and the part it plays in our society. The previous period of rectorship was characterised by institution building, so the next should focus on consolidation and continuing to improve on the best of what we have, says Paula Crabtree.

Read more at www.khib.no

Neu/Now Festival 2010

The 2010 NEU/NOW Festival will take place in Nantes, France, at the end of October. We want the best and most exciting graduating young artists from across Europe to be there. Therefore, we are pleased to invite ELIA members and members of partner networks to nominate their graduating talent. And since the live festival coincides with the ELIA Biennial Conference, drawing 400-500 participants, we also invite all Biennial participants to come and see !

The deadline is 1 June. You can also download the full call here.

See www.neunow.eu for projects at last year’s live and virtual festival, and click on the category NEU/NOW to read the live blogging from last year’s festival.

Pictures from the TA

ELIA Teachers’ Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria, 1-4 July 2009

We got pictures from the Teachers’ Academy at last. In fact, we got 2GB worth of pictures – so we had to downsize a bit and make a selection. For some odd reason, I couldn’t make a gallery on WordPress, so they’re online at http://www.elia-artschools.org/meetings/TA.

If you’d like to have one in larger version, or know if you’re on a photo we didn’t put online, please drop a line.

Aalto University, with a capital A

The University of Art and Design Helsinki is merging with Helsinki School of Economics and the Helsinki University of Technology to become Aalto University. To position itself, the new university chose a logo that rather powerfully asserts itself – assertion with a capital A, literally.

AIB becomes AUCB

 

 

 

The Arts Institute at Bournemouth will become the Arts University College at Bournemouth in two days.  We don’t know yet what their new logo will look like.

ITs Festival goes international

June is graduation month, and all around Europe art schools are putting on their graduation shows and festivals. Last night we attended the opening of the 20th International Theatre School festival, ITs for intimates, which features over 70 unique productions by fresh graduates in theatre, dance, music and film. Advertising itself as the largest European festival of its kind, and as standing at the cradle of the future of theatre, it is now featuring work from Frankfurt, Berlin, Dresden, Bern, London, and Perth, as well as from most leading performing art schools in Holland and Flanders. “In the coming years we are going to put a lot of effort into expading our international branch”, says Theu Boermans, artistic director.