On the road again

ELIA Executive Director, Maria Hansen has started back travelling with a fresh new outlook as she embraces hybridity and gets the mix right.

Most of you will be reading this newsletter at the start of a new semester and new academic year at your institutions. All of us here at ELIA wish you well, as you navigate the challenges of the months ahead. The pandemic is still with us and we are seeing very different approaches now to the questions of education in person or not, and the question of whether or not to travel internationally again.

For me, I am so happy to have had the opportunity since July to be ‘on the road again’ (although it is more apt to say: on the train again, as I am trying actively to decrease my carbon footprint). It was a great pleasure to visit ELIA president, Andrea Braidt, in Vienna before the summer and to really have the time to talk, then walk, then look at art, and then talk again and so on. It was an incredibly productive day for ELIA and I know that we would not have been able to do this in such a way online. At the same time, Andrea and I can have incredibly short exchanges via text messages, telephone calls and video conferences where we take lots of decisions – also really good. Getting the mix right is important.

Speaking of ‘the mix’, in addition to our growing online offer, ELIA is at this point preparing for several physical meetings again – starting with an exciting few days in Vienna in October for anyone keen to meet colleagues in artistic research (more info). ELIA’s Leadership Symposium in Tallinn is already attracting a really interesting crowd – it’s so great to see many of you signing up your leadership teams, rather than just sending one person. Leadership is present on so many levels within the organisation, and we are delighted to see that our ‘combi-deal’ for teams is getting such a good response. Find out more

The ELIA Academy is being launched this week. This signature event for anyone passionate about teaching and learning, will be a hybrid experiment - starting with an online lead-up and then a two-day physical event in Brussels. Having just confirmed some of the final speaker contributions, I know you will love it – both online and offline. Join us for sure!

For both of these events, we are fortunate to have had physical preparation meetings in Tallinn and Brussels. This will also be the case with the ELIA Biennial 2022, taking place in Helsinki in November 2022. Although the steering group for this event has only ever met online, we are very much looking forward to actually getting to know each other in person later this month with a visit to our host institution, University of the Arts Helsinki.

Just to say, if you can travel again - join us! I think you will find, as we have, an enormous energy boost from actually meeting colleagues again. It makes a world of a difference. And if you are unable to travel yet, join our online programmes. Do engage in our community speed-networking moments and reach out to the ELIA team if you are looking for partners for a project. Either way, we look forward to seeing you – virtually and physically!