Course programme 2024

The Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts invites international artists, art lovers, and other interested who approach seeing (sensing) today from an interdisciplinary artistic practice towards social justice and equity. The Academy was founded in 1953 as the “School of Seeing” by the renowned Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka.

Course programme 2024
The Academy invites applications for its exciting 2024 programme. Each year, the Academy invites international artists, curators, collectives, educators, scholars and writers to serve as instructors for its summer programme. In 2024, we are pleased to offer courses under the instructorship of: Fahim Amir (writing), Phila Bergmann / Thea Reifler (curating / educating), Adriana Bustos (drawing), Neha Choksi (sculpture / performance), Ofri Cnaani (sound / performance / installation), Gürsoy Doğtaş (curating / writing), Philipp Gufler (printmaking), Thalia Hoffmann / Manar Zuabi (sound / performance / multi-media), Astrit Ismaili (performance), Ari Benjamin Meyers (music / installation), Ulrike Müller / Evie K. Horton (painting), Ania Nowak (performance / choreography), Sarker Protick (photography / moving image), Karol Radziszewski (painting), Curtis Talwst Santiago (painting / sculpture), Mette Sterre (installation / performance), Sophie Thun (photography), Hannah Tilson (printmaking), Nananko Umemoto / Jesse Reiser (architecture / design), Neta Weiner / Stav Marin / Samira Saraya (sound / performance).

At the Academy, instructors translate their practice and research into a pedagogic relationship with participants to explore contemporary art practices in mutually interrogative, personal, and enduring ways. Conversations are undertaken with a view toward materialising art-related ideas or transmitting them into research and life. 

This year’s programme focuses on various contemporary approaches to sound, music, and performances, such as activist voicing (Weiner / Marin / Saraya, Hoffmann / Zuabi), dingolaying (Santiago), music-making (Meyers), transforming bodies and ecologies (Choksi, Cnaani, Ismaili, Nowak, Sterre), together with queer archiving and mapping (Bustos, Doğtaş, Gufler, Radiszewski), collective-oriented practices (Bergmann / Reifler, Umemoto / Reiser), patterns and sizes (Tilson, Thun), and narrating art and philosophy (Amir, Sarker).

For detailed information on instructors and courses.

Public programme 2024
The specially curated public programmes will revolve around listening differently as a form of rehearsing non-violent futures. The auditory realm will be explored via its potential to embody conflictuality, resonate with nuances, amplify silenced narratives, permeate borders and seep through dichotomic identity perceptions. Practices that use the human voice and sound, among them performance, music, radio, and film, will act as an invitation to come together in speaking and listening, to participate, refuse, collaborate or co-resist.

The entire programme will be online in June 2024.

Scholarship application
Deadline: April 28, 2024. The Summer Academy offers numerous scholarships, most of them covering the participation fee, while some also include travel and accommodation expenses. A jury, together with the instructors, will award the scholarships. 

Together with its supporters, the Academy will award extra scholarships (participation fee, travel, accommodation, per diem) for anyone interested who is currently fleeing or seeking asylum in Europe.

Together with “zt Oberösterreich und Salzburg” and “Initiative Architektur”, the Academy offers scholarships for participation in the architecture class. Students enrolled at the Universities of Technology in Graz, Innsbruck and Vienna, may apply for ECTS credits.

For further information and online scholarship application.

Course application 
Deadline: May 26, 2024. Anyone interested may apply, as no degrees are required, and will submit to a selection process in which the instructors decide on who will be accepted. All applications received by May 26, 2024 will be treated equally in the selection process; after May 27, 2024, they are considered according to the number of available places.

Course fees 
Two-week course: 670 Euro (495 Euro), three-week course: 890 Euro (635 Euro). Course fees do not include artist’s materials. Students, welfare recipients and the Society of Friends members are eligible for reduced fees. For further information and online application.

Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts since 1953
Founded in 1953 by renowned Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980) as the “Schule des Sehens” (school of seeing), the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts at Hohensalzburg Fortress is the oldest of its kind in Europe. Approximately 20 courses are offered each summer and attended by more than 300 participants from over 50 countries, making the Academy a vibrant venue for international artistic and creative exchange. The Academy offers anopen application process to anyone interested, no degrees required; a unique opportunity to study with outstanding international artists, curators, collectives, educators, scholars and writers; devote time exclusively to making art or developing ideas while also learning about and reflecting on art and its discourses; classes based on one-on-one supervision as well as group discussion; stunning historic course environment surrounded by an alpine landscape; public programmes with cultural partners in Salzburg and elsewhere; access to art literature and magazines.

For further information, please contact office [​at​] summeracademy.at.