TransCultural Exchange

CONFERENCES

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22nd, 2018
LUNCH TIME WORKSHOPS
12:15 – 1:15 pm

Workshop: Cultural Mobility's Impacts
Location: Auberge Internationale de Québec, Portfolio Review Room
Marie Le Sourd, Secretary General of On the Move – the Cultural Mobility Information Network
DESCRIPTION: What are the impacts of mobility (residency, touring, training, co-production etc.) on an artist and/or a cultural, arts or professional organization? This interactive workshop helps to identify the nature of mobility impacts and offers another way to discuss the funding of artists’ mobility. Through peer-to-peer learning, this session also will provide the participants with tools and funding resources to encourage more cultural mobility experiences to happen while taking into consideration the experiences of the participants.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 2018
MORNING SESSIONS
10:00 – 11:45 am

Workshop: Finding the Best Fit: Researching and Applying for Artist-in-Residence Programs
Location: Maison de la littérature | L'Institut Canadien de Québec's Scène littéraire
Bojana Panevska, Project Manager for International Collaborations and a Workshop Facilitator at TransArtists
DESCRIPTION: This workshop will focus on finding, researching and applying for artist-in-residence programs.

Workshop: How to make a Documentary Film
Location: Auberge Internationale de Québec, Portfolio Review Room
Rob Santaguida, Film-maker
DESCRIPTION: This personal documentary film workshop will provide participants with a comprehensive knowledge of the mechanics involved in producing a personal documentary film. The attendees will learn the basics of this type of filmmaking through the process of actually making a short, one-minute film. They will learn how to find the cinematic equivalent for their ideas, for the stories they like or for topics with which they are interested. In order to realize their projects, participants will be taught how to develop their own unique conceptual approach. The lesson will focus on learning the fundamental elements of visual storytelling and film production, including direction, cinematography, writing and editing. Sessions are split between in-class instruction and in-field filmmaking, putting creative and technical ideas into practical use. One documentary film will be made for every individual involved. The participants and I will work hand-in-hand on each respective film. We will apply the principle of never having fear or shame in the dignity of our experience, language and knowledge. The workshop will culminate with each participant having completed a personal documentary film.
This workshop (ending at noon) is limited to 20 people. Sign up [here].

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 2018
LATE AFTERNOON SESSIONS
3:30 – 5:15 pm

Workshop: Creative Brain Training
Location: Auberge Internationale de Québec, Portfolio Review Room
Diego Irigoyen, Artist and Creator of Creative Brain Training
DESCRIPTION: This program is founded on the knowledge of neuroplasticity and will teach participants how to begin their journey of improving their brains through the art of ambidextrous penmanship. During this workshop participants will briefly learn of the program’s inception, its components and the neurological knowledge that it is founded upon. The group will then proceed in a guided session of ambidextrous and mirror image penmanship. Ambidextrous development is a major component to this program and, when combined with cursive penmanship, it can lead to phenomenal benefits in cognition, memory and all around health. The fine motor control involved in creating beautiful cursive handwriting increases blood flow through the brain, initiating the processes of neurogenesis, synaptogenesis and myelination.
The program is made up of three major tenets: ambidextrous development, mnemonic memory training and conscious breathing. The program’s curriculum unifies these partitions through the creation of artwork. This unit has been taught on the campus of California State University, San Bernardino for three years and has improved the academic performance of participating college students. Additionally, the program is taught to inmates at a few California Departments of Corrections and Rehabilitation and has greatly improved the participants’ impulse control, patience, memory and cognition.

Workshop: How to Find Suitable Open Calls, Structure an Application Calendar and Save Time
Location: Maison de la littérature | L’Institut Canadien de Québec’s Scène littéraire
Andrzei Raszyk, Cultural Producer and Consultant
DESCRIPTION: This workshop aims to give students, freelancers and independent artists the tools to find open calls, and to organize and keep track of their applications. Depending on one’s discipline and career level, professional needs vary. Pursuing exhibitions, festival screenings, mobility grants or production opportunities are motivated by different questions that call for different solutions, but what connects this research is a common working model with which the actions can be optimized.
This workshop will help attendees set goals and time lines. It will teach tricks that can bring the desired and sorted open calls to your mailbox. Many online platforms publish hundreds of new opportunities on a weekly basis. During the workshop, we will speak about the politics of such websites and their motivations. Based on selected examples, we will critically read texts of open calls, discuss their main points and learn to find the best programs for one’s needs. Last, but not least, we will get to know file management systems for various formats of portfolios, project descriptions and personal information.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24th, 2018
MORNING SESSIONS
10:00 – 11:45 am

Workshop: How to Create a Stunning Website
Location: Auberge Internationale de Québec, Portfolio Review Room
Rudi Punzo, Artist, Web Designer and TransCultural Exchange Webmaster.
DESCRIPTION: So you want to update your website, hire a web designer or even launch your first website? What do you need to consider to best optimize your site, drive traffic to it and make it an effective tool for communicating your ‘brand’? How can you make it accessible to everyone and easy to navigate across multiple platforms? Good website design can be deceptively difficult, but with the right tips, much of these issues can be less daunting and leave you with a website that is not only user-friendly, but the perfect one for you.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24th, 2018
EARLY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
1:30 – 3:30

Workshop: Investigating the Role of Interpretation in Research Practices
Location: Auberge Internationale de Québec, Room C
Note: This workshop will run from 2:30-3:30
Laura Donkers, Environmental Artist and Doctoral Candidate at the University of Dundee
DESCRIPTION: This workshop will engage participants in a card game. The Monument Game isa deep map that investigates aspects of the bio-cultural heritage of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, through the riddle of how a Monkey Puzzle tree came to be planted on a small island in Loch an Eilean, Askernish, South Uist, during the time of the Highland Clearances, and the long-term effects that still resonate in the land today. It also presents facets of research practice and the diversity of interpretations that can be formed from the same information. 'The more a layer of text is interpreted, transformed, taken up anew, stitched back together, replayed, rewoven – each time in a different way – the more likely it is to manifest the truth it contains.' (-Bruno Latour: An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)

Workshop: “In a few moments time I will count down from 10 to 1 and we might all understand a bit more about things.”
Location: Auberge Internationale de Québec, Portfolio review Room
Simon Lewandowski, Artist (who has been working with Hypnosis as a medium since 2007)
This 2- hour workshop is limited to 15 people. Sign up [here].
DESCRIPTION: Since 2007 I have been working with hypnosis as a medium. Using it, I have – in different ways and at different stages, – produced books, performances, drawings and films. This year I will be undertaking a 9-month project with a major UK city art gallery. I will hypnotize volunteers in the empty gallery bringing them to an appropriate level of trance. They will be gently encouraged to imagine themselves looking again at the gallery’s spaces, but this time at a future point when they are filled with whatever they imagine will fill them at that point – it might be a point in a year’s time, perhaps 10, perhaps 100. Their descriptions will be audio recorded, transcribed and edited to produce a series of scripts for “audio guides,” which will be recorded by actors and made available for visitors in the gallery as Guides to the Art of the Future. In my paper I will give theoretical and historical background to this and a surprising number of other artists’ projects using hypnosis in a range of media and to inform a variety of practices.
The workshop In a few moments time I will count down from 10 to 1 and we might all understand a bit more about things will introduce the experience of hypnosis and related techniques of visualization as well as less obviously-related topics such as instructional art and the idea of the experimental method as a cultural trope. The workshop will establish a safe space (literally and metaphorically) for contemplating and possibly experiencing a radically “de-centered” approach to an art practice. The workshop will be suitable for artists, socially-engaged practitioners, academics and arts administrators interested in the field.