Indian artist Amar Kanwar’s IHME Helsinki 2022 Commission entitled Learning from Doubt is a ten-week online course. The first edition of the course was organized in the Spring on 2022 and is based on Amar Kanwar’s The Sovereign Forest art installation and exhibition. During the course participants prepared their own projects and introduced them to the public on 3.11.2022. The recorded video with the project presentations is available at the IHME Helsinki Youtube Channel.
The Learning from Doubt course second edition is now open for registration until 15.8.2023.
Learning from Doubt in 2022
The first edition of the course attracted more than a hundred applications from all over. IHME Helsinki’s partners, Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki and Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science of the University of Helsinki organized their own application process. As a result of the search, a total of forty-two art and sustainability students began the course. The course assignments included multidisciplinary collaboration.
A work of art is a course, and the course is a work of art
The Sovereign Forest is an art project that has been ongoing since 2009 and has been evolving, expanding and experimenting with different forms and presentations. The Sovereign Forest attempts to initiate a creative response to our understanding of crime, politics, human rights, and ecology. The validity of poetry as evidence in a trial, the discourse on seeing, on compassion, justice, and the determination of the self – all come together in a constellation of films, texts, books, photographs, seeds and processes. The Sovereign Forest has overlapping identities. It continuously reincarnates as an art installation, an exhibition, a library, a memorial, a public trial, an open call for the collection of more “evidence”, an archive and now a school. It is also a proposal for a common space that reflects on education, politics and the arts.
The Sovereign Forest has been made in collaboration with Samadrusti/Sudhir Pattnaik and Sherna Dastur. Samadrusti is a fortnightly Odia political and social news magazine, Sudhir Pattnaik is the editor of Samadrusti and a social activist. Sherna Dastur is a graphic designer and filmmaker based in Delhi.
Learning from Doubt in 2023
Course will be arranged in collaboration with IHME Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts and Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science within the University of Helsinki. The co-operation enables students from different fields to co-operate in a course assignment prepared by Amar Kanwar. In addition to the course content offered by Amar Kanwar, students have the opportunity to participate on-site and online meetings led by Henna Laininen (Academy of Fine Arts) and Viktor Pál (HELSUS, University of Helsinki). IHME Helsinki's Executive Director and Curator Paula Toppila will also participate in these meetings. In these meetings we discuss the contents of each course module and work in small groups on the course assignment.
More info on the course and IHME commission: https://www.ihmehelsinki.fi/en/ihme-commission-2022/
Evaluation scale: Pass or Fail
Course language: English
Application to the course:
Course participants will be selected through the following preliminary assignment.
Please watch "Louder than Words with Amar Kanwar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7P95sPBki0 and answer the following question in 200-300 words: "What did you take away from the video?" Please submit your response by 15.08.2023 via an email to viktor.pal(at)helsinki.fi