The Educational Web

Taking the theorist, educator, and decolonial thinker Ivan Illich’s seminal book Deschooling Society (1971) as a point of departure, THE EDUCATIONAL WEB aims to generate a dialogue between art and the educational and pedagogic practices that underpin it.

THE EDUCATIONAL WEB was an exhibition that took place at the Kunstverein in Hamburg between 1 April–6 August 2023. This project brought together the work of eight schools, educational organisations, and independent study programmes which define themselves as alternatives to the traditional “art academy”. Over the course of the exhibition, Afterall ArtSchool has initiated a series of online interviews and a growing library physically present at the Kunstverein. These conversations, which will double as podcast episodes on our ArtSchool platform, involves practitioners thinking through three different strands: education as learning together, problematising the decolonial institution, and studying in the shadows.

Stay tuned for updates on our episodes!

Events

A Conversation with Johanna Palmeyro

(RECORDING COMING SOON) Conversation between Buenos Aires-based initiator of Movimiento Justicia Museal (Museum Justice Movement) Johanna Palmeyro and Afterall ArtSchool Coordinator Arianna Mercado as part of THE EDUCATIONAL WEB at the Kunstverein in Hamburg. This discussion will reflect on the question of knowledge and unlearning within the context of museological practice.

A Conversation with Zach Blas

(RECORDING COMING SOON) Conversation between artist, filmmaker, and writer Zach Blas and Afterall ArtSchool Coordinator Camille Crichlow as part of THE EDUCATIONAL WEB at the Kunstverein in Hamburg. The discussion will reflect on Blas’s pedagogical and research-based approaches to artistic practice and technologies of capture informed by queer and feminist theory.

A Conversation with A Particular Reality

(RECORDING COMING SOON) Conversation between members of the UK-based collective A Particular Reality and Afterall ArtSchool Coordinators Camille Crichlow & Arianna Mercado as part of THE EDUCATIONAL WEB at the Kunstverein in Hamburg. This discussion will reflect on building collective, collaborative and creative learning environments and anti-racist approaches to arts education.

A Conversation with KUNCI Study Forum & Collective

(RECORDING COMING SOON) Conversation between Yogyakarta-based KUNCI Study Forum & Collective and Afterall ArtSchool coordinator Arianna Mercado as part of THE EDUCATIONAL WEB at the Kunstverein in Hamburg. This discussion reflects on KUNCI’s School of Improper Education and the collective’s ethos to experiment with methods in producing and sharing knowledge through the acts of studying together at the intersections of affective, manual, and intellectual labour.

A Conversation with Rinaldo Walcott

(RECORDING COMING SOON) Conversation between writer, critic and Professor and Chair of Africana and American Studies at University at Buffalo Rinaldo Walcott, and Afterall ArtSchool Coordinator Camille Crichlow as part of THE EDUCATIONAL WEB at the Kunstverein in Hamburg. This conversation explored the logics of what Walcott terms ‘the long emancipation’ in the context of educational apparatuses and knowledge systems, in addition to the role of Black creativity and its centrality to the emergence of Black freedom.