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Text as an Artistic Medium

Kandidatutställningen 2024, Marabouparken. Verk av Neil Bhat och Kristina Nenzén. Foto: Jean Baptiste Béranger

Application opens 25 February 2025. Applications are made via an application link that can be found under each course page during the application period.

Text as an Artistic Medium is aimed at students, artists and cultural practitioners (with at least 60 ECTS-credits from a higher education programme with an artistic basis) who want to develop their writing and find methods for using text and writing as artistic material. The course aims at individual artistic development through critical reflection on one’s own artistic practice and the working process for artistic text work.

Course content

Inspired by autofiction, queer perspectives and contemporary overlaps between poetry, art and literature, the course participants will be provided with a set of tools to apply in their own practices. The course prioritizes the participants own interests who are developed through joint writing exercises, the reading of each other’s and other people’s text and in-depth studies of artistic textual practices.

The course is based on the idea of text as an artistic medium and will observe and present content related to performative writing, the relationship between writer/sender and reader/recipient, and text as an artistic method in performance. The methods and content of the course draw inspiration from trans and queer feminist, intersectional, power critical and experimental theories.

Course structure

The course consists of three compulsory workshop modules, with lectures, discussions, shared reading and feedback on participants’ work. In addition, students will develop their own text projects and work independently. The course ends with presentations of the students’ work on Index, for example in the form of a fanzine.

Module # 1 To write

Place: Index
Time: 9–11 June

The course begins with a focus on the writing process, which is explored and developed through individual and collective approaches and methods.

Module # 2 To read

Place: Index
Time: 23, 25, 27 June

The second module of the course introduces relevant theory and reference texts.

After these two initial weeks, participants start their individual text project. During the month of July, all course participants are offered a one-to-one meeting (digitally or physically) with one of the three course leaders for feedback on form, content and work process. After this, the participants’ independent text work resumes until the last joint course week.

Module # 3 To distribute

Place: Index
Time: 18–20 August

The focus of this module is on the sharing or distribution of text-based works, with examples from different artistic expressions and concretely applied to the participants’ own materials. Participants will present the work they have done during the summer and will receive feedback from the rest of the student group, the course leaders and the Index team.

Throughout the course period, students will have access to writing space and technical equipment at Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation. The art centre is located at Kungsbro Strand 19 and will be available to students four days a week. Please note that the other workshops at the Royal Institute of Art, including the technology lending centre, are closed during the summer.

At the centre of the course is the student’s own individually designed project and the work to achieve the goal that the student has set for the project. During the course we will have both tutorials and joint meetings to reflect, discuss and help the students in the artistic process.

Course leaders

  • Isabella Tjäder, co-director at Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation
  • Andria Nyberg Forshage, writer, poet, curator
  • Ruby Nilsson, artist, dramatist
Credits18 hp
LevelFirst cycle course, not beginners
LanguageSwedish and/or English
Entry RequirementsGeneral entry requirements: General requirements for freestanding courses at a first cycle level.

Specific entry requirements: 60 ECTS-credits from a higher education programme with an artistic basis                                                  
SelectionSelection is made based on 3-4 work samples out of which at least one is text based
Course Period9 June–29 August 2024
Responsible teacherIsabella Tjäder
Contactisabella@indexfoundation.se (regarding course content), helena.falldin@kkh.se (study administrative questions)