Steffi's post

Hello all,

Following on from yesterday's brief meeting, here are my thoughts:

As I said after the seminar, with regard to the thematic focus of the symposium it strikes me as very interesting if the event would constitute an extension of the PhD seminars that have been and are taking place, where artists/researchers from different disciplines are meeting and discussing creative practice as well as research in practice as such. In my own research it has often been invaluable to me to witness art practice from another discipline, as well as to have conversations on creative practice with artists from different disciplines to my own, such as painters and musicians. Such cross-disciplinary exchanges often allow to highlight specific aspects that might not be easily identified if one remains within the discourses of one's own discipline, as the discourses and vocabularies that are in use seem to differ across disciplinary art practices. It would seem interesting to me to open this symposium to musicians, creative writers, performance-makers as well as artists (fine arts), in order to allow for conversations to take place around creative processes and emergences in art practice at large.
It would be great to hear back from you what you think about this, and we could all try to identify key research questions and begin to outline the area of investigation in more detail.

With regard to the date and venue of the event, I feel the Centre for Creative Collaboration might be a rather small venue to run it in. I have spoken to various people at Trent Park and they are sure that we can find a weekend where various studios as well as one of the theatres would be available for a symposium. This would allow contributors to present work in theatres and studios, alongside papers and panels. What do you think?
I also feel that running the event any time this year is very tight, as much would need to be organised still. I can propose to look out for a weekend where suitable spaces are available at Trent Park from around February and March, or any other dates that we agree on.

I also thought it might be useful if each PhD student had a profile somewhere on the Mdx website. I can ask whether that's a possibility, if you are interested. It might be good to put everybody out there officially before we begin advertising anything, with details on your research and experiences. Are you interested, would you like me to ask whether this would be possible? Maybe we could even have a website linked to the university website. I can ask if you think this might be useful but cannot promise anything!!

Here is an initial list of things I can think of that we need to work on:

- create a document that outlines the thematic focus of the symposium, with key research questions
- identify a suitable date in researching related conferences and symposia, making sure they would not clash (check in all areas, dance, theatre, music, writing...)
- find and secure a suitable venue, also enquiring about catering possibilities
- identify contributors that we would like to invite
- create a call for contributions (practitioners, academics, PhD students?)
- create a website?
- calculate costs
- what funding do we need and where can we apply?
- fee for symposium?
- (later on: list of suggested accommodation etc)

Again, I think all this needs a bit of time, and once the call goes out, we need to give people time to create an application, I would say at least two months, but best longer, also sending reminders. And then there should be a good two or three months between the time we confirm applicants and the event taking place, so that they can confirm their participation and we create a schedule, they can book etc...

Lots to do!! Let me know your thoughts. Am flexible on everything, this is simply what I arrived at and what is going through my head right now! You might have a very different conception of the event, I am happy to follow your ideas.

Best wishes,
Steffi=