The program offers its participants relevant tools, current knowledge and discussions about the relationship between contemporary art and public spaces through lectures, field studies, and meetings with leading artists, curators, and theorists.

This year, we delved deep into public art, challenging us to consider its role in our collective memory through memorial sites and monuments. Monuments have stories. Do you know theirs?

“We see that there is a need and a desire for, an in-depth program that is academically up-to-date while also being closely linked to the field of practice. There is a timely need to discuss how to deal with the complexity of creating good memorials, what the ongoing monument activism is an expression of and art's capacity for memory management and democratic correction,” says Trude Schjelderup Iversen, senior curator at KORO and responsible for the curatorial program.

Think of movements like Rhodes Must Fall and Black Lives Matter, which have redefined our conversations about public art. How do we curate in such loaded spaces? What monuments stand the test of time and which ones require a new narrative?

HAC was responsible for the practical execution of the program, including coordination and logistics, contributing to the programming, organizing the public seminars connected to the course (see below) and representing a bridge between the two professional fields in Norway and Copenhagen.

Participants in 2023: Sofia Maia Ciel, Gry-Kristina Fors Spein, Clara Maria Blasius, Mari F. Sundet, Jasmina Kemura, Miki Gebrelul, Tanja Sæter, Elise By Olsen, Ida Højgaard Tjømøe, Leif Magne Tangen.