Conference: Pedagogies of Space

25–26 February 2016

Open City, Ritoque, Chile: Poetic Act for the ‘Opening' of the site, 1971. Courtesy of Archivo Histórico Jose Vial, Escuela Arquitectura y Diseño, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso

The two-day conference, summarizing Index’s program dedicated to Oskar Hansen’s pedagogy of Open Form, explores the notion of space in the context of experimental art and architecture education. Considering space both as a learning environment and a teaching tool, the seminar gathers postwar and contemporary examples of pedagogical practices that question and reshape established sites and modes of creative education.

Deriving from different contexts and time, those practices share their interest in space as a means to provoke changes—either to test the borders of disciplines, as in Hansen’s open-air games or Anna and Lawrence Halprin’s performative workshops, or to transform educational process through redesigning its setting, as in Hansen’s adaptation of the seat of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts to Open Form curriculum. Space may be used as a site to embody innovative pedagogical concepts, as in Ciudad Abierta (Open City), collectively built microutopia constructed by the students and faculty of the Architecture School of the Catholic University in Valparaiso, or as a non-site, becoming a tool to free education from its institutional ties, as in Buckminster Fuller’s nomadic teaching or contemporary self-organized academies that in their lack of attachment to particular place find an escape from neoliberal logics of result-oriented education. In addition to presentation by researchers and writers, there will be also presentations from student workshops organized in collaboration with the Kungl. Konsthögskolan and Konstfack, Stockholm, and the Art Acadmy of Jutland, Aarhus.

With Eva Diaz, Mark Wasiuta, Oscar Andrade Castro, Anna Molska, Alina Serban, Tor Lindstrand, Kristina Lindemann, Jens Evaldsson, Sam Thorne, Kuba Szreder, Alberto Iacovoni, Peter Lang, Magnus Ericsson, Florian Zeyfang, Christina Pech. Organized in collaboration with Aleksandra Kędziorek, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. The conference will be in English.

Thu, 25 February 2016

4:00 pm—5:45 pm
Aleksandra Kędziorek (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw), Axel Wieder (Index, Stockholm), Introduction
Eva Diaz (Pratt Institute, New York) on Buckminster Fuller, Black Mountain College, nomad teaching and global learning network
Alina Serban (art historian, Bucharest) on the Sigma group in Romania and the cartography of learning

Open discussion
Coffee break

6:00 pm—7:30 pm
Oscar Andrade Castro (TU Delft) on the Open City of Amereida, poetic crossings and other approaches to space developed by the School of Valparaíso
Anna Molska (artist, Warsaw) on Oskar Hansen’s architecture as a film setting

Open discussion
Drinks

Fri, 26 February 2016

2 pm—3:30 pm
Workshops presentations and course introductions, with Peter Lang (KKH, Stockholm), Magnus Ericsson (Konstfack, Stockholm), Florian Zeyfang (Jutland Art Academy, Aarhus) and students. Moderator: Alberto Iacovoni (VCU Qatar)

4:00 pm—5:45 pm
Tor Lindstrand (KTH Stockholm) on the Design Process Studio at KTH and the practice with students for an upcoming exhibition about Botkyrka at Arkdes.
Kristina Lindemann (curator, Stockholm), Jens Evaldsson (artist, Stockholm) on the Floating School Stockholm and learning through building micro-utopias

Open discussion
Coffee break

6:00 pm—7:30 pm
Sam Thorne (Nottingham Contemporary) on self-organized education and artists’ work with social space, focusing on Catedra Arte de Conducta, School of Panamerican Unrest and Open School East
Kuba Szreder (curator, Warsaw) on the Slow/Free University of Warsaw and the circulation as an object and a space of research

Final discussion, moderation: Christina Pech (KTH, Stockholm)
Drinks

Admission: 80 SEK per day, 140 SEK for both days, consc: 50 SEK per day, 80 SEK for both days
Tickets can be purchased during Index office hours. We accept cards and cash payments.
Please register at rsvp@indexfoundation.se

With kind support by the Polish Institute in Stockholm, the Polish Presidency in the Council of Baltic Sea States, the Royal Institute of Art, Architecture, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, and Iaspis – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Artists.