February 25–27, 2016
Early registration deadline: December 15, 2015
Boston University
George Sherman Union
775 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
TransCultural Exchange’s next International Conference on Opportunities in the Arts will take place February 25–27 at Boston University (with attendant activities at the Massachusetts College of Art + Design, Emerson College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University Art Museum’s Study Center, the French Cultural Center and the Goethe Institut, Boston). Produced every other year, these conferences’ primary aim is to let artists know about the wealth of opportunities for them to participate, interact and work with their international peers. They bring together hundreds of artists with speakers from more than 40 countries—curators, critics, gallery dealers, artist-in-residency directors, scientists, engineers and others interested in working with artists. They are both an ideal bridge from academia to a real world practice and a global connector for more established artists from around the world to meet. Activities range from keynote talks, workshops, informal gatherings, evening receptions, Pecha Kucha presentations, panel discussions, concerts and tours (including MIT’s Art and Architecture program, MIT’s Glass Lab, the Harvard Art Museum’s new Study Center and Biomedical Modeling) to portfolio reviews and more. The conference schedule is available here.
With Boston University as this year’s leading academic host, the bulk of the panels will take place at the university’s George Sherman Union. The conference’s theme “Expanding Worlds” is meant to pick up where the last conference (“Engaging Minds”) left off. The goal is to encourage artists not only to attend programs where they can become acquainted with other cultures and meet/work with their international peers, but also to address many artists’ growing desire to engage in other fields of study.
Speakers such as Ute Meta Bauer (Co-Curator of the American pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale and Founding Director of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore), Gediminas Urbonas (Director, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology), Jean-Baptiste Joly (Founding Director of Akademie Schloss Solitude), Damien Hebron (Director of London Arts in Health Forum), Johan Pousette (Director of Sweden’s IASPIS), Marie Fol (Program Manager of TransArtists at Dutch Culture), Marie Le Sourd (Secretary General of On-the-Move), Pieranna Cavalchini (Curator of Contemporary Art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), Doris Sommer (Director of Harvard University’s Cultural Agents), Caitlin Strokosch (Executive Director of the Alliance of Artists Communities), Andy Riess (Assistant Director for Outreach for the Fulbright Scholar Program), Dr. Gaël McGill (Director of Molecular Visualization at the Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics at Harvard Medical School), Yannick Franck (Artistic Director of Belgium’s Les Brasseurs), Margaret Shiu Tan (Founder of Taiwan’s Bamboo Curtain Studio), Andrei Siclodi (Director of Austria’s Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen), Sarah Tanguy (Curator at the Art in Embassies program), Kira Simon-Kennedy (Co-Founder of China Residencies), Crispin Weinberg (Biomedical Modeling pioneer), Lanfranco Aceti (Editor of Leonardo Electronic Almanac), Florian Grond (Cognitive Interaction Technologist), Sandeep Bhagwati (founder of the research-creation lab, the matralab) and Kelly Krause (Creative Director of Nature) are among the over 150 international representatives invited to inspire new avenues of artistic exploration and points of intersection, where barriers dissolve and alternate forms of understanding emerge. The full list of speakers, featuring a brief biography of each, is available on the conference website.
We welcome you to join us at this rare opportunity—a moment when Boston welcomes the art world.
Conference sponsors include: Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, Massachusetts College of Art + Design, Emerson College, swissnex boston, Goethe Institut (Boston), the Boston Cultural Council, The Boston Foundation, Québec Government Office in Boston, French Cultural Center of Boston, Boston College, Bank of America Matching Gift Program, and the Ministry of Family, Children, Youth, Cultural and Sports Affairs of the Federal State Northrhine-Wesphalia (Germany).
About TransCultural Exchange
Incorporated Sept. 17, 2002 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, TransCultural Exchange’s mission is to foster a greater understanding of world cultures through high-quality art exhibitions, cultural exchanges and, most notably, a biennale International Conference on Opportunities in the Arts.
For more information, please contact Mary Sherman at [email protected].
