The ever practicing artist
2021

Workspace Ricerca X – Research and Dramaturgy is back in 2021 with the program The ever practicing artist, renewing its commitment, witnessed by its six years of activity, to the emergence and consolidation of an artistic research culture in Italy.

For this year we place artistic practices at the centre of our reflections, animated by the desire of contemplating the plurality of approaches to work already existing on our territory and deepening the dialogue with the emerging singularities. Well aware of the multiplicity of possible declinations , we are not looking for a definition of what an artistic practice is, rather we are seeking  the coexistence and dialogue of different points of view on artistic practice as a responsive and vital matter. We think about practice as a flexible tool to observe and specify one’s field of interest, as self-generative and generative of a kind of knowledge that becomes sharable. Through these reflections and questions, a complex research environment can be activated: a place of sharing, of proximity and circulation of practices, people, materials and discourses, from where knowledge and other meanings can emerge.

The reflection on practices in the field of artistic research allows us to specify once again the necessity of balancing out theory and praxis, while continuing to  further discuss the relationship with the broader context, specifically  with academic research. Premises, methodologies, evaluation and validation parameters  are just some of the aspects regarding which artistic research specifies its own alterity and complementarity in relation to other fields of knowledge, particularly to  scientific research.
Regarding the question of what are the possible places for research, in a panorama that includes institutional contexts and independent projects, our intention is to situate ourselves in the emerging space of an “ek-stitution”(*), as an actor both complicit and critical towards the institution. A place for research based on the multiplicity, layering and complexity of practices and practitioners, formats and thinking materials, discourses and intelligent corporealities. As opposed to individual orbits and aims towards excellence, we observe the necessity to highlight  the multitude of possible declinations. And therefore therefore  bringing to light the plurality of existing facets and approaches and to give them space, visibility and tools to advance in the process.
In this respect, we mention the “Vienna Declaration on Artistic Research”, published in June 2020 by several European organizations for higher art education and artistic research (cultureactioneurope.org/news/vienna-declaration-on-artistic-research), representing representing  the first international policy document on artistic research. In light of this document, where some big European institutions dictate policy-making guidelines in a  top-down direction, it becomes even  more important to work in the opposite way. Trying to cover a different and necessary path, with the awareness that here too lies the sense of an ek-stitution.

For six years, Workspace Ricerca X has been working for  supporting, enhancing and developing artistic research in the field of contemporary dance in Italy, through residency sessions shared between dance artists who are asked to continuously shift their roles, from participant, to observer, to collaborator.
In continuity with the previous editions, we will propose to the working team, made up of artists, choreographers, dancers and educators, a non-neutral residency format. An horizontal dimension of peer-coaching will be the place where to deepen one’s own artistic trajectory, through an intense and reflective dialogical mode between the participants, starting from each one’s practices, materials, research methodologies.

The program The ever practicing artist will be developed through two research residencies in June and September 2021, a series of open workshops, together with other events and public openings throughout 2021. The program is curated by Workspace Ricerca X in collaboration with Lavanderia a Vapore in Collegno – centre for experimental contemporary creation.