Abstract

A condensed programme of international courses with site-specific focus was developed as part of the collaborative art study programme Media Arts and Practices. Among higher-education partners from Italy, Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia the collaboration crossed the realms of new-media and contemporary art, film, animation, photography and scenography. Aiming at art pedagogy practitioners including art-school managers, who plan to develop or implement similar forms of intensive courses or programmes, the article discusses several key phenomena emerging among different stakeholders of the artistic or media-production education process. A plethora of research-and-development data, gathered along the three years of the collaborative study programme provision and intensive short-term course deployments, were condensed into lessons-learned that focus around the aspects of (blended) course design, interdisciplinary teaching and production methods, academic feedback and critique, as well as impact on local stakeholders. By shedding multi-layered light at site-specific art pedagogy along four short case-comparisons (from Graz, Komiža, Rijeka, and Venice), the article reflects an important trend in the arts—increasingly hybrid, multidisciplinary practices. It shows how social and (aesth)ethical change is well possible within a culturally reflected art pedagogy-cum-production setting that can materialize a collective and meaningful impact on a specific site, and its social tissue.