The collection, documentation, study and display of other creatures, cultures, and objects dates back to earliest civilizations. This tradition continues today in an updated interactive look. Within contemporary art, the critique of the institution both as content and form has become a well-established trend.

The workshop will combine presentations of historical and contemporary models with daily hands on activities suitable for all art forms. Historical models such as wonder cabinets, medical libraries, natural history museums will be examined for their cultural and political significance and the ongoing obsessive desire for the consumption of other cultures and life forms. Contemporary examples that mimic, comment, subvert and utilize these systems and display methods will also be presented. Students will discuss and examine these models, systems, research, and create a work specific to their medium and interests.

Via examination of historical models and contemporary examples, participants will develop their own inventory and angle of inquiry.

Radical changes in the nature of work have lead to the current tendency to regard curatorial, artistic and cultural work as indicative of the ways in which all work is increasingly (forced to be) creative, flexible and precarious - making artists exemplary contemporary workers. Through selected projects of contemporary artists and groups we will explore the increased sharing of skills and expertise as well as the rising importance of communicative interconnections in what the autonomists call the 'social factory'.

• To introduce concepts and examples of contemporary interdisciplinary arts praxis.
• To develop strategies for research and future creative production that is informed by historical and theoretical references.