Sound + Synthesis | Expanded Study

Monthly Subscription: cost variable (3-month minimum subscription)

I offer one-on-one creative, academic, and professional support to artists, curators, and scholars through a customized ‘Expanded Study’ platform, which is delivered remotely, as well as in-person, when it is possible for participants. The platform extends from the educational dynamics and structures of my university course and production intensive, Sound + Synthesis, which won the faculty-wide Dean’s Teaching Fellow Award from Queen’s University in 2023 for “enriching student learning with high-impact activities and curriculum design.” As was the case with the original course, the Expanded Study platform is meant to activate new forms of artistic production and thinking through a consistent use and exploration of sound, with an additional priority of nurturing a personal commitment to one’s own experimental or speculative practice. This is done in the platform by providing concise bi-weekly prompts and regular in-depth feedback on the participant’s work, designed to enhance the development of technical skills and push adventurous conceptual thinking.

Different from the undergraduate course, the increased level of one-on-one interaction that is possible in the Expanded Study platform means that participating artists, curators, and scholars are able to more capably ‘customize’ their production goals. Over the course of a minimum 5-month period, we will identify clear aims for our working together – whether that is the completion of an artwork or film, the development of an artistic portfolio or body of work, advancing a writerly practice, mastering a technical skill, making a public presentation of a project, expanding the bounds of a scholarly practice, etc. – and find ways to reach those goals together through a customized workshop structure. Readings will be assigned and notes will be written in response to the interests and trajectories of the participant.

This mentorship platform is not affiliated with Queen’s University and does not result in course credits.

Mentorship Style | My teaching and mentorship style is highly engaged, communicative, and generous. I apply my sensibilities and background as an artist, filmmaker, curator, organizer, and educator to build and sustain energizing environments of intellectual and creative support, in ways that always seek to place their own unique capabilities and interests at the centre. Students I have taught have described me as a compassionate and collaborative teacher, and have expressed finding great joy in the learning environments that I create with them.

The monthly subscription covers:

• bi-weekly meetings and discussions (online, or in person when possible);
• unlimited email communication and written feedback on projects;
• when it is relevant to the participant’s goals, originally designed artistic production assignments, customized specifically for the participant and including detailed feedback;
• tutorials and workshops on technical and conceptual skills relevant to the participant’s goals, such as audio and video editing, exhibition design strategies, art writing, assembling a body of work, applying to a production grant, etc.;
• assistance in researching opportunities related to the participant’s goals, such as academic programs, exhibition / presentation opportunities, artist residency programs, etc.
• access to special digital content from the Sound + Synthesis Open Educational Resource.

To inquire, please contact me at neven.lochhead@gmail.com and arrange for a free initial meeting.

Mentor Bio | Neven Lochhead, PhD, is an artist, filmmaker, curator, and educator from Kingston, Ontario. He received his PhD from Queen’s University in May 2024 for his book-length dissertation and portfolio, An Artist’s Almanac to Research, Organization, Education, and Bookings, which was subsequently nominated for the the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal by the Department of Film and Media. From 2016-2020, he was Director of Programming at SAW Video Media Art Centre in Ottawa, where he launched and operated the immersive exhibition venue Knot Project Space, and mounted a city-wide urban video projection exhibition, Imagining Publics. His co-curated exhibition at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, a guest + a host = a ghost, won exhibition of the year at the 2022 GOG Awards. In 2023, he received the faculty-wide Dean’s Teaching Fellow Award at Queen’s, acknowledging the “exceptional commitment to teaching” in his original course, Sound + Synthesis. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in University of British Columbia’s School of Music, where he has been commissioned to make a series of documentaries examining the carceral logics of museum collections and the repatriation of Indigenous songs to their communities of origin. His solo and collaborative artistic and film work has been shown across North America and Europe and he has attended international residencies such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Maine, 2015) and the Fondazione Antonio Ratti (Lake Como, 2014).