The Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm) invites you to apply for its upcoming Summer School, launching during the Spring Semester 2025 at Kungl. Konsthögskolan and online. The program will culminate in a nine-day intensive session in Marseille, France, in June 2025.
Participation is free, with travel and accommodation covered by CAPIm. The Summer School is open to all program students at Kungl. Konsthögskolan and HDK-Valand.
Learn more about CAPIm by visiting our website: www.capim.se
The Summer School welcomes participants from the BA, MA, PhD, and MFA Programmes at Kungl. Konsthögskolan and HDK-Valand.
For a Justice-to-Come
CAPIm Summer School 2025
Dates and locations
Four mandatory hybrid online/in-person reading seminars: 14-17:00, April 15 and 29, May 15, and June 5 at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm
Intensive Summer Session: June 7-16 in Marseille, France with travel to Aix-en-Provence and Port Bou, Spain.
Course content
The international response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza makes clear that there is a crisis in the notion of justice. A consensus among European countries forged in the wake of the Second World War governing war crimes has dissipated. Or, it might be more accurate to write that contradictions inherent in that fragile agreement about the universality of access to justice have been freshly revealed. This dissipation is not isolated: the rise of the extreme right-wing in places like India, Brazil, the United States, and throughout Europe marks a decisive shift not only in the political landscape, but in the structures that shape society’s collective imagination about the very nature of the term, justice.
“For a Justice to Come” is a summer school centered on the implications of this shift for artists, curators, designers, and others whose work engages with the aesthetics of imagination. It is grounded in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who argued that justice must remain an idea that haunts and decenters the institutions that claim to arbitrate it. Organized by the Center for Art the Political Imaginary, it will take place every other year beginning in 2025.
Program
The inaugural Summer School (June 2025) will be held in Marseille, which was a key transit point for those fleeing European fascism during the second World War. One of its most famous passers-through was Walter Benjamin, who left from Marseille for Spain overland before taking his own life in Port Bou. The school would meet in Marseille, travel in Benjamin’s footsteps, then return to Marseille to continue its curriculum. The location and journey are significant because Derrida defines his notion of justice-to-come against Benjamin’s understanding of justice. In addition to reading both philosophers, the school will take in the monument to Benjamin located just across the Spanish border, and include both practice- and text-based seminars and workshops.
Four mandatory on-line sessions in April and May will set out the philosophical confrontation between Walter Benjamin and Derrida. These sessions allow for participants to take a role in shaping parts of the curriculum in June, as well as forge a common set of references to work both with and against during the summer intensive.
In June, the Summer School will be structured by four practice-oriented nodes: one defined by CAPIm’s 2025 visiting Senior Researcher Liv Bugge in line with her artistic practice; another examining the question of from where/whom justice to come might be claimed in conjunction with a visit to 3 bis f; a third devoted to Valentina Desideri and Denise Ferreira da Silva’s practice of ‘Poethical Reading’; and a final node will be dedicated to the journey to Port Bou in Walter Benjamin’s footsteps.
Conditions for participation
Travel to and from Marseille for the summer session will be covered by CAPIm for students, as well as travel between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence and between Marseille and Port Bou for all participants. Accommodation will be provided for all students. Participants are responsible for their own per diems, which should cover food and some ground transportation while conducting independent work in Marseille. Participants must arrange travel insurance for themselves and their belongings.
Participants must be available to attend all four seminars in April, May, and early June, as well as attend all days of the summer school. Partial participation is not possible. The seminars will include extensive reading in English, and the summer school will be held in English, so a measure of comfort in the language is also a prerequisite to full participation.
No ECTS credits will be awarded, as the elective is considered part of the individual study work in each year of study. The Summer School is not eligible for a CSN student loan; however, travel and accommodations including per diem will be covered.
Application procedure
Please send your letter of motivation to natasha.llorens@kkh.se by January 10th 2025. Your letter should include your current year of study, the program you are enrolled in, and a brief description of your artistic practice. Most of your letter should explain how this summer school will help in the development of your practice. Please be as specific as possible, and please do not exceed 500 words total. You may also submit a portfolio of your artistic work for consideration, though this is not mandatory.
Five participants maximum will be selected from Kungl Konsthögskola’s student body, five from HDK-Valand’s student body and maximum five participants will be selected from among the residents of Triangle-Astérides, Artagon and 3 bis f, the local institutional partners for the 2025 Summer School.
Participants will be selected on the basis of the relevance of the Summer School for their individual work, and with special emphasis placed on the composition of the entire cohort. The selection will be made by a jury with CAPIm representatives from KKH and HDK-Valand, as well as local institutional partners in Marseille. A decision will be communicated by February 1st 2025 with a start date for the elective on the 15th of April, 2025.
Additional questions may be addressed to Natasha Marie Llorens, natasha.llorens@kkh.se.
