This practice-based course focuses on the concept of memory as immediate inspriation and tool for creating performance art. Through joint analysis of historic and contemporary examples by artists such as Franko B., La Pocha Nostra, Kimsooja, Preach R Sun, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, or Miao Jiaxin, participants will approach different forms of memory such as personal vs. collective, and the discourses connected with them: from emotion such as love and loss, to issues of identity, gender, and race, or experiences of migration, displacement and diaspora.
Building on these discussions as well as selected readings, participants will be guided to explore various approaches of using memory in their artistic practice, which they will be able to elaborate through both assigned as well as in-class performances. The course is divided into three main sections focusing on personal, group, and collective memories through which participants will explore a span of memories from intimate experiences to global issues like the current Covid-19 pandemic. 
Participants will have the opportunity to experiment in a safe, judgement-free zone where they can express themselves most honestly while receiving the support and knowledge to grow confidence and strengthen their personal performance persona, presence, and space. 

Syllabus

“Jovanovic is truly an artist of the twenty-first century. She can no longer call one country home, after living in Europe, the Middle East and North America. Her practice moves effortlessly between performance, sculpture, video and installation. She is interested in the legacy of feminism, but she also has deep admiration for her male forbears. Are these contradictory stances? They should not be. For identity today is a shifting and transforming process, rather than a fixed state. We have learned from the achievements as well as the mistakes of earlier feminist thought—prescribing what is a liberated feminism from what is not is a futile process. What is more enlightening is to understand that the post-feminist condition allows for a personal quantification of identity, one that is not forced or assigned. This is what our feminist predecessors fought for so bitterly—for our generation to have freedom to make our own choices about our bodies, our art, our lives.” Dr. Kathy Battista – Marta Jovanovic: Performing the Self (2013)