Artistic Interventions and Education as Critical Practice
(Un)learning processes, community engagement and solidarity

Symposium and Workshops
April 4th and 5th, 2014

Following the series of events in autumn 2013, in this symposium we discussed the ways that artistic interventions can create open and shared collaborative learning spaces for empowerment and agency in informal contexts, and in exchange and solidarity with social movements. Focus were on critical practices at the various intersections of the arts and education exploring new settings for research and action aiming at social transformation. Artistic projects were presented and discussed, and ideas will be developed and presented as interventions in public space.

The following questions were explored: What types of strategies for artistic intervention have artists and cultural workers employed at the intersection of the fields of education, research, and pedagogy? How are such projects positioned in relation to activism, cultural resistance, social movements, and education? How do artists and cultural workers initiate, develop, and realize projects with, and in solidarity with various communities in an attempt to initiate critical practices through artistic interventions? Hhow do they do that in relation to educational processes? What does knowledge production look like in such projects? And what makes this a critical practice?

One aspect of the conference concerns were artistic interventions in relation to (un)learning processes and hierarchical knowledge systems. Annette Krauss presented various long-term collaborative practices that she has (co-)initiated, such as Read-in / ASK! / Read the Masks. Tradition is Not Given / School of Temporalities. Krauss presented aspects of these works in relation to hidden and alternative curricula in schools and domestic spaces and discussed the potential of (un)learning with regard to collaboration, our bodies, and social practices we are involved in.
Focusing on her project Hidden Curriculum (since 2007), Krauss provided insights into various performative situations that have been explored by pupils in different stages of the project in their respective schools. These performative situations engage with invisible, unplanned, and unexpressed forms of knowledge and learning in schools. It is an attempt to think together with pupils about the location and the institution "school," its value system and the routines taking place. In the workshop, we will use these elaborations as a starting point to think about a possible Hidden Curriculum in academic studies and at university: What do we learn, what do we not learn, and why?

The second aspect of the conference dealt with the idea of interventions and community engagement in relation to the question of artist solidarity. Janna Graham and Nicolas Vass presented projects realized during the UK movements against cuts to Education in London using examples from their work with Precarious Workers Brigade, UK Uncut, Ultra-red, and the Centre for Possible Studies. Questions of solidarity were raised in relation to forms of "artistic placement," i.e., of artists being placed or placing themselves in particular social realms, and they discussed examples of what the differences might be between diverse approaches. Questions arised such as: How can artistic interventions support movements and issues in progress-by developing creative interventions, helping to frame questions, thinking about futures beyond immediate concerns? How do we put our creative skills to work in the context of community organizing and mobilization? What questions does this raise, i.e., about authorship, artistic autonomy, distribution of resources, etc.? What politics are associated with doing this work using resources from mainstream cultural institutions and academia? Does engaging in acts of solidarity necessitate a certain artistic unlearning and departure from the art world as we know it? To engage in solidarity work, what skills do we require that are atypical of those we tend to learn in art school? What skills are important for us to retain?