Mick Wilson
About Mick Wilson
Mick Wilson is an artist, educator and researcher based in Gothenburg and Dublin. He is currently Professor of Art. and Director of Doctoral Studies, at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg.
Background
Trained as both an artist and historian of art and design–with graduate degrees in art & design history; information technology and education; and visual culture–he is a research professor at University of Gothenburg, appointed on both academic and artistic grounds (according to the Swedish University protocol.) Having three decades of experience in higher arts education, research, development and leadership, he has worked in a wide variety of roles and institutions, including as: former Director of Valand Academy, Gothenburg (2012-2018); Fellow at BAK, basis voor aktuele kunst, Utrecht, the Netherlands (2018/2019); Editor-in-chief PARSE Journal for Artistic Research (2015-2017); Dean of the Graduate School of Creative Arts & Media, Ireland (2007-2012); Chair of the SHARE network of 40 higher arts education institutions across 30-plus countries (2010-2014); and Head of Research, National College of Art & Design, Ireland (2005-2007).
Current teaching and research interests address aspects of the political imaginary, with particular focus on the operational and practical register:
- constructions of 'public-ness' and the 'social' in the contemporary art field;
- body-counts: political community with the dead and the regime of calculation;
- exhibition-making as enquiry;
- the rhetorical dynamics of knowledge conflict and violence
- the aesthetic politics of foodways.
Current and recently concluded projects include:
- Museum of the Commons (EACEA, 2023-2027) with L'Internationale museum confederation;
- Open Up (EACEA, 2019-2023) with Behjat Omer Abdulla and Esme Lindström- and the Open Up network;
- Public Art Research Report II (GU, 2020-2023 with Kjell Caminha);
- Fontänen: Ett konst-teknologiskt socialt drama (FORMAS, 2020-2024) with Dr. Maddie Leach and Prof. Lars-Henrik Ståhl (LTH)
- EARN Curatorial Studies Workshop (GU, 2021-ongoing) with Prof. Henk Slager et al.
- Our Many Europes (EACEA, 2018-2022) with L'Internationale museum confederation;
current / recent courses based on this work include:
- Commissioning & Curating Contemporary Public Art (Spring /Fall 2023)
- Art and Politics: On Friendship & the Political Imaginary (Fall 2023)
- Introduction to Contemporary Art & Politics (Summer 2023)
- Museum Research (Spring 2023)
- Summer Academy for Artistic Research (SAAR Summer 2022)
- Exhibition Studies (Fall 2022)
- Plague Theory: Epidemic Cultures & Epistemic Praxis (Fall 2021)
Co-edited volumes include:
- with Gerrie van Noord & Paul O'Neill (eds.) Kathrin Böhm: Art on the Scale of Life, Sternberg / MIT Press (2023)
- with Henk Slager (eds.) Expo-Facto: Into the Algorithm of Exhibition, EARN (2022)
- with Cătălin Gheorghe (eds.) Exhibitionary Acts of Political Imagination (Editura Artes/ArtMonitor, 2021)
- with Nick Aikens et al. (eds.) On the Question of Exhibition 1, 2, & 3 (PARSE, 2021)
- with Paul O'Neill et al. (eds.) Curating After the Global (MIT, 2019)
- with Giogiana Zachia et al. (eds.) Public Enquiries: PARK LEK & the Scandinavian Social Turn (BDP, 2018)
- with Paul O'Neill & Lucy Steeds (eds.) How Institutions Think (MIT, 2017)
- with Paul O'Neill & Lucy Steeds (eds.) The Curatorial Conundrum (MIT, 2016)
- with Paul O'Neill (eds.) Curating Research, Open Editions/De Appel (2014)
- with S. van Ruiten (eds.) SHARE Handbook for Artistic Research Education, ELIA (2013)
- with Paul O'Neill (eds.) Curating and the Educational Turn, Open Editions/De Appel (2010)
Current doctoral supervisions include:
- 'Rewinding Internationalism: An exhibitionary inquiry on the political imaginary’ Nick Aikens (2018-2023)
- 'The kale bed is so called because there is always kale in it.' Åsa Sonjasdotter (2018-2023)
- 'Pan-African feminist ecological creative imaginaries' Nkule Mabaso (2021-2025)
- 'Provisional rehearsals' Thiago de Paula Souza (2021-2025)
- 'Ultimology, or the study of endings, as a point of entry for imaginative discourse' Fiona Hallinan external co-supervisor with Prof. Nancy Vansieleghem, LUCA School of Arts KU Leuven (2019-)
- 'Filmmaker in the archival multiverse: practices,politics and poetics of the archive(s)' Marc Johnson, external co-supervisor with Prof. Sher Doruff, Film and Media Department, Stockholm University of the Arts.(2021-)
- 'Based on a true story: In between the fictive and the documentary' Jörgen Dahlqvist, external co-supervisor with Prof. Esa Kirkkopelto, Teaterhögskolan, Lund University (2021-)
- 'Self-initiated institutions: the case of artists-run educational platforms' Ginevre Ludovici, external co-supervisor, Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca (2022-)
- 'Curatorial practices in Latvia: Approaches and debates' Antra Priede, external co-supervisor, Latvian Art Academy (2022-)
Recent and current workshops and conferences:
as part of research on body-counts:
- 'Political Community with the Dead' as part of So Close: Ecologies of Life and Death conference, Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana
- the co-realisation of 'State Violence as Practice' strand within the PARSE 4th Biennial Conference, Violence together with Dr. Jane Tynan of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (17-19 Nov 2021); and co-editing forthcoming PARSE Journal issue (October 2022)
- 'Denial: They tell me often, that "we" deny death' as part of Bratislava BAK Summer Spring School, Art During Death (2021)
- 'Body Counts: Scenes from the Political Life of the Dead' part of Statecraft, the 2020 IMMA Summer School (2020)
as part of research on the question of exhibition and curatorial practices:
- 'In Different Places: Imagining the Biennial Form' symposium on the future biennale frameworks of three distinct traditions': Havanna, Istnanbul and Gothenburg. Co-organised by European Artist Research Network (EARN), Gothenberg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), HKU Utrecht, and HDK-Valand research education. Speakers include: Margarita Gonzalez Lorente, Ioana Leca, Bige Örer, and Henk Slager. (8 Jun 2022)
- 'O My Friends, There Is No Friend' three week intensive with guest researchers and speakers including: Simon Critchley, Celine Condorelli, Yuk Hui, Walter Mignolo, Jota Mombaca, Sara Pierce, Elizabeth Povinelli, Helena Reckitt, Sybil Schwarzenbach, Shuddha Sengupta, and Claire Tancons co-convened with Prof. Steven Henry Madoff of SVA New York (28 Jun -16 July 2021)
- 'The Political Condition of the Young Cultural Proletariat' with colleagues from Iasi and Gothenburg, and guest researchers and speakers including: Raluca Voinea (Bucharest), Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić (Belgrade), Vladimir Us (Kishinev), and Vasyl Cherepanyn (Kyiv) together with Prof. Cătălin Gheorghe, Vector Studio,”George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iasi. (22-24 Jun 2021)
- 'handfuls thrown into air and scattered over earth' curatorial workshop as part of Farewell to Research: Bucharest Biennale 9 (2020)
as part of ongoing work in respect of the expanded terms of contemporary art practices:
- Tools and Technologies for Embedded Arts Practice Unidee Residency at the Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, Italy (2021)
- Embedded Arts Practice in a Post-pandemic Future Unidee Residency at the Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, Italy (2020)
-
The Crowd of the
Dead
Mick Wilson
Glossary of Common Knowledge. Vol. 2. Curated by Zdenka Badovinac, Jesús Carrillo, Ida Hiršenfelder - 2022 -
Expo-Facto: Into the Algorithm of
Exhibition
Henk Slager, Mick Wilson
2022 -
Notes Towards the Question of the Exhibition
Online
Mick Wilson
Expo-Facto: Into the Algorithm of Exhibition - 2022 -
La Mise-en-Abîme: Placing Academic Writing in Scare
Quotes
Mick Wilson
New Perspectives on Academic Writing: The Thing That Wouldn’t Die - 2022 -
They tell me often, that we deny
death.
Mick Wilson
Btatislava, Slovakia Open Studio/Studio IN – Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava; BAK (basis voor actuele kunst) in Utrecht; APART Collective in Bratislava. Summer school series initiated by Kristína Országhová. - 2021 -
Expo-facto: into the algorithm of
exhibition
Mick Wilson
The Postreserach Condition - 2021 -
Exhibitionary Acts of Political Imagination.
Introduction
Cătălin Gheorghe, Mick Wilson
Exhibitionary Acts of Political Imagination - 2021 -
On the Question of Exhibition, PARSE Journal Issue 13: Parts
1,2,3
Nicholas Aikens, Kjell Caminha, Jyoti Mistry, Mick Wilson
2021 -
Exhibitionary Acts of Political
Imagination,
Cătălin Gheorghe, Mick Wilson
2021 -
Handfuls thrown into air and scattered over
earth
Mick Wilson
Project Website (https://exhibition.school/home/) - 2020 -
Body Counts: Scenes from the Political Life of the
Dead
Mick Wilson
The Irish Musuem of Modern Art International Summer School 2020: On Statecraft - 2020 -
Contentious Subjects: Constructionism and the Project of Higher Arts Education
(Keynote)
Mick Wilson
Constructionism 2020 - 2020 -
White Mythologies and Epistemic Refusals: Teaching Artistic Research Through Institutional
Conflict
Mick Wilson
Teaching Artistic Research: Conversations Across Cultures - 2020 -
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Higher Arts Education after the Global
(Keynote)
Mick Wilson
Keynote Address: Pedagogical In-Flux and the Art of Education Conference, Kochi, India - 2019 -
To Live the Coming
Death
Mick Wilson
Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent (Edited by Maria Hlavajova and Wietske Maas) - 2019 -
“What Is to Be Done?” Negations in the Political Imaginary of the
Interregnum
Mick Wilson
What about Activism? Steven Henry Madoff (ed.) - 2019 -
Cemetery
Archipelago
Mick Wilson, Birgitta Nordström, Ram Krishna Ranjan, Jyoti Mistry, Daniel Jewesbury
Research Pavilion, Sala del Camino, Campo S. Cosmo 621, Giudecca, Venice Research Catalogue: - 2019 -
foodthing: a sampler
menu
Mick Wilson, Jeanette Doyle, Cathy O’Carroll
AC Institute, New York - 2019 -
Curating After the Global: Roadmaps for the
Present
P. O'Neill, S. Sheikh, L. Steeds, Mick Wilson
2019 -
Public Art Research Report
(2018)
Kjell Caminha, Håkan Nilsson, Oscar Svanelid, Mick Wilson
2018 -
Engaging performative contradiction: Introducing the rhetorics of practice and method to artist
researchers
Mick Wilson
Practicing Art/Science : Experiments in an Emerging Field / Edited By Philippe Sormani, Guelfo Carbone, Priska Gisler - 2018 -
Applied Experiments in Political
Imagination
Mick Wilson
Learning in Public : transEuropean Collaborations in Socially Engaged Art, E. Tunney, (ed.) - 2018 -
Introduction: The Social as Always Already the
Political
Mick Wilson
Public Enquiries : PARK LEK and the Social Turn in Scandinavian Contexts, Mick Wilson et al. (eds) - 2018 -
Public enquiries : PARK LEK and the Scandinavian social
turn
Mick Wilson, Helena Selder, Giorgiana Zachia, SOMEWERE
2018 -
Dónal Óg (To
Seminar)
Mick Wilson
Chapbook published as part of exhibition "To Seminar", at BAK, Utrecht - 2017 -
Institution and Political Community with the
Dead
Mick Wilson
How Institutions Think. Between Contemporary Art and Curatorial Discourse. Paul O'Neill, Lucy Steeds and Mick Wilson (red.) - 2017 -
She spoke the word ‘aesthetics’ from her drooling
mouth
Mick Wilson
Gut Feelings, Sarah Higgins (ed.) - 2017 -
Something Along the Lines of . .
.
Mick Wilson
The Dark Precursor : Deleuze and Artistic Research. Volume II: The Dark Precursor in Image, Space, and Politics / Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici (eds.) - 2017 -
To Sing Song
Seminar
Mick Wilson
To Seminar, Henk Slager (ed.) - 2017 -
Take one step forward, two steps back, and then turn
left-ish
Mick Wilson
FUTURES OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH: At the Intersection of Utopia, Academia and Power, Jan Kaila, Anita Seppä, Henk Slager (eds.) - 2017 -
How Institutions Think: Between Contemporary Art and Curatorial
Discourse
P. O'Neill, L. Steeds, Mick Wilson
2017 -
Institutional
Graft
Mick Wilson
Im/Plants - 2016 -
The Curatorial Conundrum: What to Study? What to Research? What to
Practice?
P. O'Neill, L.. Steeds, Mick Wilson
2016 -
Artistic Research between Inquiry and Revolt
(Keynote)
Mick Wilson
Keynote: The Dark Precursor: International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research (DARE 2015) - 2015 -
Curating
Research
Mick Wilson, Paul O'Neill
2015 -
An Opening to Curatorial
Enquiry
Mick Wilson, Paul O'Neill
Curating Research Paul O'Neill and Mick Wilson editors - 2015 -
"Preface" to After the Agreement: Contemporary Photography in Northern
Ireland
Mick Wilson
After the Agreement: Contemporary Photography in Northern Ireland - 2015 -
Exhibition/Non-exhibition: Stretched Out. A
Seminar.
Jason E. Bowman, Julie Crawshaw, Mick Wilson
Saturday 27 June 2015 Venue: Inaugural Research Pavilion: Experimentality Venice Bienniale Collateral Programme Sala del Camino - 2015 -
Opening to a Discussion on
Judgement
Simon Critchley, Andrea Phillips, Mick Wilson
PARSE Journal - 2015 -
do you remember
that…
Mick Wilson
Closing address: The Future Curatorial Conundrum, Bard CCS - 2014 -
Dead
Public
Mick Wilson
Vector: Critical Theories and Creative Practices of Research, Catalin Gheorghe editor - 2014 -
An Anachronistic
Aesthesis
Mick Wilson
Experimental Aesthetics, Henk Slager editor - 2014 -
Beyond
Pebbledash
Mick Wilson
Beyond Pebbledash: ...And the Puzzle of Dublin, editors Kearns Paul Ruimy Motti - 2014 -
Curatorial Moments and Discursive
Turns
Mick Wilson
Ce zhan hua ti - 策展話題 - Curating Subjects (Chinese Edition) Paul O'Neill editor - 2014 -
Four Theses Attempting to Revise the Terms of a
Debate
Mick Wilson
Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art, Expanded Edition, James Elkins editor - 2014 -
Between Apparatus and Ethos: On Building a Research Pedagogy in the
Arts
Mick Wilson
Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art, Expanded Edition, James Elkins editor - 2014 -
"We are the Board, but what is an
assemblage?"
Mick Wilson
Art as a Thinking Process, edited by M. Ambrozic & A. Vettese, pp 238-247 - 2013 -
Chapter 4 Case Studies; SHARE Handbook for Artistic Research
Education
Mick Wilson
SHARE Handbook for Artistic Research Education, Mick Wilson and Schelte van Ruiten (eds.) - 2013 -
Toolbox: Curriculum Resources (Part 5 SHARE
Handbook)
Mick Wilson
SHARE Handbook of Artistic Research Education, Mick Wilson and Schelte van Ruiten (eds.) - 2013 -
Wanting to know something
else
Mick Wilson
Einstein / Duchamp et après? : Le recherché dans l’enseignment supérieur artistique, A. Degavre (ed.) - 2013 -
Discipline Problems and the Ethos of
Research
Mick Wilson
SHARE Handbook of Artistic Research Education, Mick Wilson and Schelte van Ruiten (eds.) - 2013 -
Art, Education and the Role of the Cultural
Institution
Mick Wilson
Sustaining Cultural Development: Unified Systems and New Governance in Cultural Life - 2013 -
Blame it on
Bologna
Mick Wilson
MetropolisM - 2013 -
Come Promises From
Teachers
Mick Wilson
Offside Effect: Papers from the 1st Tbilisi Triennial - 2013 -
Situational fictions and tactical
ruptures
Mick Wilson, Paul O'Neill
Direkter Urbanismus, transparadiso - 2013 -
SHARE Handbook of Artistic Research
Education
Mick Wilson, Schelte van Ruiten
2013 -
Retro-Spective: ‘Places with a Past’ – New site-specific art in Charleston, Spoleto Festival USA,
1991
Mick Wilson
Art & the Public Sphere - 2011 -
Sex and the City: Another Urban
Imaginary
Mick Wilson
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies - 2011 -
Fundamental Questions of Vision: Higher Arts Public Education, Research and
Citizenship
Mick Wilson
Art Futures: Current issues in higher arts education, edited by K. Corcoran, C. Delfos, and F. Solleleveld, pp. 20-29 - 2011 -
Curatorial Research Methods &
Conviviality
Mick Wilson
Locating the Producers: Durational Approaches to Public Art, edited by Paul O'Neill and Claire Doherty, 297-312 - 2011 -
Curatorial counter-rhetorics and the educational
turn
Mick Wilson, Paul O'Neill
Journal of Visual Arts Practice 10.1386/jvap.9.2.177_1 - 2010 -
Wenden und Wendungen in der
Kunstausbildung
Mick Wilson, Paul O'Neill
2010 -
Curating and the Educational
Turn
P. O'Neill, Mick Wilson
2010