EARN comprises a series of working groups that each organise their own strands of activity designed to promote the development of research dialogue and exhange around key thematics and issues.

Each Working Group has a membership that builds upon the original network of ten academic institutions that comprised EARN in the 2010s, and will invite new members in 2022.

Working Group 1. Methodology
Working Group 2. Sustainability
Working Group 3. On Value
Working Group 4. The Politics of Aesthetics
Working Group 5: Curatorial Studies Workshop
Working Group 6: Communication
Working Group 7: Space + Practice

If you are interested in participating in any of the working groups please contact the relevant Working Group facilitator listed on the working group page. (To be posted shortly.)

We are currently updating our website, and we will have new information about the working groups and their upcoming activities shortly. (October 2021)

Background

About 15 years ago, at a series of meetings held between 2004-2006, the European Artistic Research Network (EARN) was founded: a collaboration of ten European art academies that drew attention to reflecting on the significance of artistic research for contemporary visual art, as well as for a related form of art education. The discussion often focused on the development and evaluation of PhD programs in Fine Art.

Not only were thematically organized conferences held annually, but there was also regular collaboration with leading platforms for the dissemination of contemporary art (such as Manifesta, Documenta, and Venice Biennale).

In 2018 we determined that a significant part of the previously formulated ambitions and goals had been achieved. After all, artistic research has now acquired a degree of acceptance within the institutional environment of the academy; being able to follow a PhD Fine Art programme has become a common trajectory at many academies around the world; and in the (exhibition) practice of contemporary art speaking in terms of research is no longer exceptional.

Therefore, it was time to rethink the network. To this end, a series of think-tank meetings took place in 2019. This led to the following structural reorganization:

EARN would no longer stand for an exclusive organization of ten European academies, but would regroup in the coming years as an Expanded Artistic Research Network. In concrete terms, this means a beginning with a more dynamic organizational form based on the (relatively autonomous) activities of multiple working groups.

These working groups (whose fields of attention were established during the afore-mentioned think tank meetings) focus on themes and issues that reflect more substantively (instead of institutionally) on artistic research and are urgent and meaningful, such as sustainability, methodologies, value, politics or aesthetics, and curatorial issues.

At the EARN conference in Utrecht January 2021-The Postresearch Condition-these working groups presented their strategic and future-oriented agendas for the first time in the form of workshops and seminars. See workshop pages for more.