NICA recommends | Artistic Education Courses – Home Soil Projects

‘Autoethnography: Composing Experience Through Performance’

This course is a combination of autoethnographic methods and practice-as-research methodologies utilizing performance, choreography, and theater techniques. Through writing, movement, and vocal activities, students gain experience in enhancing their ability to understand and articulate cultural experiences as singular, collective, and in-process. Our approach to using autoethnography as a research method helps participants recognize power relations that perpetuate inequalities, and encourages them to critically engage with the performance of cultural selfhood to challenge unjust social norms. Through this process, they may generate new relations and possibilities for cultural, social, and political transformation in their practice and research.

Thematic Modules are grouped into the following areas:

• Writing: Writing About Self
• Voice: Voicing One’s Imagination 
• Movement: Morning Rituals
• Performance: Performing Cultural Selfhood
• Practice-as-Research
• Documentation: Modes of Translation

At the end of this course, participants will confidently be able to reframe divisive and polarizing conversations about identity politics, which are often based on binary categories, using a framework and format centered on performance practice. They will use content in their autoethnographic journal to document their process of discovering a new perspective on cultural selfhood and the ways it is shaped across varying cultural, social, and political contexts. The content in the autoethnographic journal will be used for a socially engaged, participatory project where dialogue is facilitated on a small scale. Some formats might include one-to-one performances, installations, or online interventions. Documentation of these works will be arranged in a portfolio that outlines what was learned throughout their process, starting from engaging in solo activities to sharing their practice-as-research outcomes with a group of participants.

‘Performative Interventions in Contexts of Collective Action’

In this course, participants learn to respond to conflicts that arise in multicultural and multilingual contexts by conducting collective research and facilitating translations within a group. They also learn to resignify theory based on autoethnographic research methods. The goal is to form theory collectively through embodied research, devise approaches that deepen conventional techniques used in contexts of conflict, and strategize how to activate these techniques in performative interventions. In contexts of collective action, resignifying theory seeks to challenge dominant power structures by integrating personal narratives informed by autoethnographic research.

This intensive course expands upon the concepts and practices in Autoethnography: Composing Experience Through Performance by connecting participants’ phenomenological and bodily experiences of the theory and relating it to their personal experiences, so deeper understandings of cultural nuance are gained. The purpose is to form theory collectively through embodied knowledge, devise approaches that deepen conventional techniques often used in contexts of conflict, and strategize how to activate these techniques through multilingual communication frameworks in performative interventions where English is the primary language spoken, but not the only language used by those affected.

Thematic modules are grouped into the following areas:

• Autoethnography
• Practice-as-Research
• Ethics of Facilitating Collective Processes
• Documentation: Modes of Translation
• Resignifying Theory
• Embodiment: Image & Movement
• Devising Strategies for Participation

At the end of this course, participants will understand how theoretical knowledge can be embodied, enacted, and translated using various performative approaches. They will be able to use performativity as a method of intervention to reshape unjust social realities and discriminatory cultural norms through non-normative strategies for nonviolent participation. Additionally, participants will gain proficiency in applying autoethnographic methods and practice-as-research methodologies for collective participation in multilingual contexts.

Participants will use content in their autoethnographic journal to reflect on their process and experience of discovering new perspectives on cultural selfhood and the ways it evolves across varying cultural, social, and political contexts. The content in the autoethnographic journal will be used to shape a project that is an existing work-in-progress. Projects might include writing an academic article collaboratively, designing a participatory research program, or facilitating a public dialogue. The collective documentation of the group’s autoethnographic outcomes will be organized in a shared professional portfolio that contextualizes what was learned throughout the course.

‘Practice-as-Research in the Arts & Humanities’

Participants will develop a practice involving creative expression that also contributes to broader knowledge production. They will explore how to engage with theoretical concepts and ideas through their artistic work, and conversely, how theoretical insights can inform and enrich artistic practice. Through interdisciplinary exploration, participants will use practice-as-research methods, a framework where artistic practice becomes a form of research, fostering cross-pollination of ideas and methodologies.

This intensive course expands upon the concepts and practices in Autoethnography: Composing Experience Through Performance and Performative Interventions in Contexts of Collective Action by combining performance-making techniques with visual practices. Participants will workshop a work-in-progress by developing frameworks and tools that help them better articulate their theoretical and embodied knowledge in artistic-academic research contexts. The goal is to enhance their ability to activate their ideas and findings in a final project that is ready for a live audience or viewing.

Thematic modules are grouped into the following areas:

• Autoethnography
• Practice-as-Research
• Embodiment: Image & Movement
• Resignifying Theory
• Situating Your Practice
• Phenomenology: Mapping Bodily Experience
• Processes of Deconstruction Through Diagrammatic Mapping
• Ethics of Facilitating Collective Processes
• Documentation: Modes of Translation
• Evaluation & Critique
• Devising Strategies for Participation
• Exhibition, Performances & Public Events

At the end of this course, participants will have developed a strong authorial voice, demonstrating the ability to deconstruct and connect structural relations between their chosen medium, social group, and process. They will draw from content in their autoethnographic journal to reflect on their process of deconstructing ways in which cultural, social, and political contexts shape and produce social identities. Documentation of this process, combining autoethnographic methods with practice-as-research methodologies will be used as source material. Learnings will be used to create a socially engaged, participatory project where dialogue is facilitated on a small scale. Possible formats may include one-to-one performances, installations, or virtual interventions.

Participants will collaboratively develop a curatorial concept and co-curate an event together, exhibiting everyone’s projects. This large-scale group project can take the form of a performance, exhibition, or a combination of both. Each participant will share the role of facilitating a dialogue with the public about the social justice topics raised by the group, offering reflections on how themes align with the curatorial concept. The final outcomes and learnings, starting from devising small-scale projects to collectively co-creating a large-scale project, will be documented in a professional portfolio.