On Friendship and the Political Imaginary 2025

The course On Friendship and the Political Imaginary is an associated initiative of CAPIm. Originally developed in 2021 through the collaboration between Prof. Steven Henry Madoff (SVA New York) and Prof. Mick Wilson (HDK-Valand, Gothenburg.) The course has evolved in the context of CAPIm and is informed greatly by the research of the centre, particularly the work on Mapping the Political Imaginary (2025-2027).

Questions addressed include: What is the significance and agency – if any! – of the forms and affects of social relations (friend, neighbour, comrade, ally, kin, colleague, ancestor) in a moment of ascendant authoritarianism, ethnonationalism, oligarchy and neofascism? Whose social relations are attended to when genocide and mass violence are in the same moment live-streamed and disavowed? What do state-led internationalisms of the non-aligned – Non Aligned Movement – and internationalisms from below – La Via Campesina – have to teach about current re-distributions of violence and resistance? How are professional practices of relationship responding to changing dynamics of censorship, banning and anticipatory compliance with repressive authority? What are the artistic practices, strategies and infrastructures that are active or seek to engage in this space? 

This distance course introduces key themes and questions in respect of politics, affiliation and friendship with particular reference to contemporary art practices, theories and institutions. The course proposes to explore the figure of “the friend” by attending to the intersections of contemporary art and politics drawing upon among other things art works, curatorial projects, philosophy, cultural history, anthropology, and social and political theory. A combined intensive and extensive reading approach introduces key themes and questions on the political imaginary and the different ways in which figures of the friend, the comrade, the enemy and the neighbour are mobilised within the thinking of the political.

Guest presenters in previous years include: Nick Aikens, Kathrin Böhm, Jason E. Bowman, Céline Condorelli, Gary Farrelly, Quinsey Gario, Steven Henry Madoff (co-originator of original course idea), Walter Mignolo, Jota Mombaça,  Jyoti Mistry, Ratna Mufida, Sarah Pierce, Bojana Piškur, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Helena Reckitt, Grace Samboh, Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach, Shuddha Sengupta, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Claire Tancons. The guest speakers for 2025 will be announced shortly.

The course is structured in four phases:

1. Terms,
2. Sources,
3. Disagreements, and
4. Project development.

Phase 1, terms: introductory series of lectures and seminars looking at some of the central terms and themes pertaining to the question of friendship and the figure of ‘the friend’ looking at both various traditions independent of, or critical of, a dominant Western androcentric tradition familiar in certain versions of the politics of friendship discourse. A key strategy explored here  is ‘figural reading’ (contrasted broadly with ‘conceptual analysis’) and building upon ideas of the imaginary.

Phase 2, sources: a month of extensive reading across a range of disciplinary sources, with regular check-in meetings to support the reading process and to do close reading of key extracts.

Phase 3, disagreements: intensive study period with seminars and invited guests where the group develops a shared framework for thinking collectively. 

Phase 4, project development: participants – working solo or collectively – develop project ideas connected to the course themes.

Practicalities:

Participants are expected to: (i) actively engage in the online workshops, lectures and seminars; (ii) engage in extensive shared reading; and (iii) and explore the implications of the course themes for their own practice and/or further studies.

Participants are specifically invited to develop project ideas connected to the course themes and relevant to the participants’ own practice, (e.g., theory, criticism, art making, curatorial work, cultural studies, philosophy or other research across the creative arts and the humanities).

Reliable internet access and headphones with mic are required. Presentations will typically be recorded and posted online for students to access during the course. However, guest sessions and discussion sessions are typically not recorded. Participation in the course means that your contributions to discussion in response to the formal presentations may be recorded for this purpose.

The formal presentations can be attended live and also accessed via recordings published online, at whatever time suits your personal timetable needs. However, it is strongly recommended that you attend the ‘live’ online the discussion sessions, as these offer the best opportunity to interact with the other participants on the course.

The online sessions will normally take place 16:30–19:00 CET Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evenings. 

Dates planned for Autumn 2025 are:

There are a series of optional ‘in person’ meet up sessions each year. In Autumn 2025 these sessions will be in: Brussels and Antwerp, 11-13 September 2025;  Gothenburg 15 -18 October 2025; and Ljubljana 26-28 November, 2025.  Among other activities during the intensives, we will visit several exhibitions as part of the course programme including: The Geopolitics of Infrastructure at M KHA, Antwerp; the Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art; and (Un)Equal Geographies, Ljubljana.

Application period: 17 March 2025 - 15 April2025

Please see the details on application here.

There are also possibilities, for a non-EU national who is pursuing doctoral studies, to audit this course without fees as a guest researcher attached to our doctoral programme: for inquiries contact doctoral-education@hdk-valand.gu.se with “guest research art and politics” in the message header.