The LTTA2 was conceptualized using the major principle of RELAY, understood as transitional. Instead of adding further content to the project, the activity explored what artistic (im)materials the project’s form could produce. The first day was spent introducing the schedule and activities, opening the Time Capsule from LTTA1 and dividing the participants into groups of both students and mentors. The following three days had the same schedule every day:
9.00-09.45 Physical Practice (guided by Max Wallmeier)
10.00-12.30 Group work SLOT 1
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30-16.00 Group work SLOT 2
16.30-17.30 Continuous Project Altered Daily
The group work slots took place in three different spaces: A large dance studio with sound installations, a seminar room and a workspace at Copenhagen Contemporary (an exhibition hall in the vicinity of the school). The “Continuous Project Altered Daily” was the work with the ARTwork and consisted of a jam, in which all groups participated and explored the materials they had been working with during the day.
On the last day, each group presented their work in the form of a performance followed by a Q&A. The final 2-hour sessions concluded the week into a form of re-mix of everyone’s materials. After the end of the common program, the students from Copenhagen assembled a selection of the final materials for the Time Capsule. The diverse elements included maps, scores, sculptures as well as QR codes and links. All of these were packed into a small suitcase which could easily be brought to the following LTTA. The suitcase remained the container for all following Time Capsules.
After two years of preparations during the COVID pandemic, LTTA2 was the first physical meeting with all RELAY partners. We could finally find ourselves together meeting, exchanging and witnessing the project unfold. It also meant that one important objective became to introduce the conceptual ground of the project to all participants on site. The transitional features of relaying that lay at the base of the project were tested, which gave us the opportunity to adjust our ideas and course for the future activities, where needed.
As part of the project we paid attention to aspects on how to meet our conducts of sustainability:
The Cologne group traveled by train and used the time to create artistic scores, to write, prepare and reflect. The German railway company provided extra time through significant delays both on the way to Copenhagen and on the way back.
Copenhagen is a best-practice example for how a city can function in more sustainable ways than the average of European cities. Excellent infrastructure for bikers and pedestrians and public transport, short distances, good air, and an over average environmental awareness are only some examples for this. DASPA provided a program suitable for walking distance between hotel and the work venues. DASPA organized a catering prepared by the school´s kitchens on site, which saved extra traveling through the city. Left-overs were offered to other DASPA students outside the RELAY project, which created a zero food waste scenario.
In the Copenhagen LTTA, we implemented sustainable working structures by propelling a circulation system in the schedule: work groups rotated between three different venues. This created refreshment and new perspectives on the material and manners of collaboration. At the end of each working day the groups gathered for a jam to test their materials in a collective setting.
Mentors rotated as well - both regarding the venues and the constellations. The underlying scheme/score provided a full cycle of all possible tandem constellations so that all mentors got to do the mentoring together with each of the other mentors and visit all the working spaces. For every mentoring slot the mentors would pair up in a new constellation, giving both the mentors and the students the chance to get to know each other and the possibility to discover a diversity in possible perspectives on the work they were doing.
(Connected) Methods and Tools: Relaying mentor groups; Relaying work spaces; Using the organizational structure (the project’s form) as artistic material for content production; Developing and testing the artistic materials from the different working groups in a jam-format with all the working groups at the end of each day
Participants: CNDB Ana Papadima, DASPA Darius Heid, Frida Billeskov Olesen, Gabriele Bagdonaite, Iiris Puustinen, Joaquim Bigas, Léana Licius, Lenka Vorechocska, Malin Astner, Miranda Riviere, Philippa Felländer Tsai, Rasmus Ölme, Simon Plancke, HfMT Charlotte Werner, Dmitrii Remezov, Henrike Tünnermann, Jan Burkhardt, Javier Vazquez Rodríguez, Vera Sander, UNATC Andreea Duta, Andrei Bouarlu, Antonia Itineant, Teodora Tudose, UNMB Agnes Vrânceanu, Alexandru Zaharencu, Catalin Cretu, George Păiș, SIKINNIS Maria Arkouli, Sophia Paneri