Sebastian Bailey
A Change Is Gonna Come: Artistic Agency in Contemporary Culture
Seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Thursdays, 10-12 h, weekly, starts 7.11.2024 through 13.2.2025 (except for 6.2.), plus Saturday, 15.2.2025, 10-15 h, Hardenbergstr. 33, room 110

Registration on Moodle starts 14.10.2024:
https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=2437
Moodle Enrollment Key: change

Throughout the 20th century and into contemporary culture, artistic modernism has served as a powerful means of resisting various societal hardships. Some of the most profound expressions of agency through art have emerged from racialized communities, particularly among Black and Indigenous peoples of North America, whose generational legacies narrate stories of survival amid slavery and cultural genocide. This artistic expression inherently challenges the pervasive inequalities embedded within discursive, practical, and structural frameworks. While rooted in specific cultural heritages, these stories continue to shape today’s artistic landscape, fostering the transculturation of mediums, genres, and practices among artists across disciplines worldwide. A major theme of this course is inspired by the song “A Change Is Gonna Come” (Cooke, 1963; Track 7 on Ain’t That Good News): historically, artists from marginalized communities have recognized impending societal changes through their creative expressions, engaging with events that affect daily life for all.

Through multimedia presentations, readings, and in-class discussions, students will explore the central questions: How do socio-cultural and historical contexts influence artistic practices on personal, local, and global levels? How have those who came before me impacted my artistic journey? What does artistic agency mean for me within my current context?

To elaborate, these questions will be addressed by 1) analyzing hinge points in art, music, and literary history where the trajectory of artistic expression could have diverged significantly; 2) studying artists from a variety of disciplines such as Joy Harjo, Nina Simone, Ornette Coleman, Amiri Baraka, Jean-Michel Basquiat as well as those suggested by students to understand the significance of their contributions and the contexts in which they practiced; 3) applying sociological theory (Bourdieu 1977; Outline of a Theory of Practice, and Monson 2009; in Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society) to explore connections between discourse, structure, and artistic practice, and how, together, they move toward tipping points for change within society; 4) evaluating socio-political and technological influences on the development of artistic practices and how these practices served as forms of resistance against prejudice and structural injustice; 5) considering the roles of the artists’ cultural environments and how these milieus influenced their creative practices and the broader cultural landscape.

Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation will include1)weekly (10) short journal reflections to track learning and activities 2) attendance/participation = 80% presence in-class + as much time spent on work out of class as is spent in-class 3) a reflexive assignment: a) choose a topic of personal socio-cultural salience to present orally to the class b) with this topic in mind, create a short artistic piece that uses collected and/or created sounds, objects, images, and/or movements. 10-minute time presentations will take place on the last day of class (15.2.2025).

Sebastian Bailey is a saxophonist, improviser, composer, and lecturer from Montreal, Canada. Previously the Head of the Music Department at the German International School in Toronto, he is now pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Toronto (U of T) under the supervision of ethnomusicologist Dr. Jeff Packman, focusing on improvisational practices in contemporary jazz pedagogy. At U of T, Sebastian has taught jazz arranging, ear training, jazz history, and saxophone to Bachelor of Music and Engineering students. He has received the Calder Spanier Prize for Composition and the Irene R. Miller Anoush Khoshkish Fellowship in Music and has been recognized by the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC) for his compositional contributions. His albums include Silhouettes of Silence (Fresko Music, 2012) and Ensemble de Magnac (self-released, 2018). Sebastian holds a Master of Music and a Graduate Diploma in Performance from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. This fall, he will present his research at the International Network of Artistic Research in Jazz (INARJ) in Vienna.