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Conference Program and Video Documentation

Architectures of Education

8/9 November 2019

Nottinghamshire Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme (CLASP) infants school at the Milan Triennale, 1960.

Architectures of Education is a two-day programme with presentations, screenings, keynotes and workshops seeking to reflect on cultures and architectures of education today, and speculate about what futures may lay on the horizons of knowledge production.

Throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, as pedagogical ideals change, so have their architectural form. The spatial organisation of learning is a field of design that includes the positioning of bodies, the texture and colour of surfaces, the proportionality of objects, programmatic offerings, time scheduling, and beyond. Similarly, learning can be seen as a subject of design, as the process of crafting of minds and characters. With the advancement not just of new learning models but new learning technologies, the classroom and education of tomorrow may not look like how it did today.

The event brings together some of the brightest thinkers and practitioners investigating the relationship between architecture and cultures of education today. The conference is complemented by an online issue with contributions from the speakers, crossposted on e-flux Architecture and The Contemporary Journal, the digital strand of the Public Programmes and Research at Nottingham Contemporary.

Participants include: Ramon Amaro, Sarah Amsler, Kehinde Andrews, Aoife Donnelly and Kristin Trommler, Tom Holert, Anna-Maria Meister, Irit Rogoff, ruangrupa (farid rakun), Ho Rui An, Ola Uduku and Mary Vaughan Johnson

In collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham, Kingston University and e-flux Architecture.

Friday, 8 November: Learning Structures

2–3:30pm Tom Holert and Anna-Maria Meister
3:30–5pm Aoife Donnelly and Kristin Trommler
6:30–8.30pm Keynote: Irit Rogoff

Tom Holert and Anna-Maria Meister

Saturday, 9 November: Education Otherwise

12–1:30pm Kehinde Andrews and Ola Uduku
2:30–3:45pm Ramon Amaro
3:45–4:45pm Ho Rui An
5–7pm Keynote: Mary Vaughan Johnson

Ramon Amaro and ruangrupa (farid rakun)
Ho Rui An

Workshop: Collectivism in space - Gudskul Ekosistem

ruangrupa

Sat 9 Nov, 10–11am

This workshop explores and expands on the Gudskul method, an informal school on collectivism and ecosystem building launched by ruangrupa, together with Serrum and Grafis Huru Hara, in Jakarta (2018). Collectivity becomes the site from where to reinvent situated practices, networks of solidarities, and sustainability, both conceptual and financial. ruangrupa is a contemporary art organization founded in 2000 by a group of artists in Jakarta. In Indonesian, ruang means “space”, and rupa stands for “visual” or “form”.

Workshop: Educating hope otherwise

Sarah Amsler

Thu 7 Nov, 3–6pm: Fri 8 Nov, 10am–1pm; Sat 9 Nov, 10–11am

This workshop explores the desire for educational futures beyond the norms of contemporary society. What kinds of learning can animate collective capacities to move beyond what is given as possible in contemporary society? How can we devise ways of knowing and being that gesture towards different futures together? In what ways might prevailing modes of hope and utopian practice reproduce unsustainable, unjust and violent relations of power between ourselves, other beings and the earth? Educating Hopes Otherwise creates a space which critically nurture the education of this desire.

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