Pedagogies Of Care: The Swamp School

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas will present their interdisciplinary artistic practice, focusing on their ongoing project The Swamp School. Their talk is featured in ‘Pedagogies of Care’ series’, and hosted in conversation with Andris Brinkmanis.

Swamps are not only sinks for carbon but also vessels for our imagination. By providing habitats to a plethora of beings, they facilitate the biodiversity that flourish in the morass. The Swamp School invokes the concept of a »swamp« as a tool to address the vital urgency of human cohabitation with other forms of life, placing the swamp at the crossroads of disciplines and practices. Situated in the center of Venetian Lagoon and joined by a number of participants from diverse disciplines and local inhabitants in Venice, the Swamp School was focusing on pedagogical exercises that engage sensorial, immersive and embodied aspects of knowing. Embracing the swamp and the other forms of worlding participants created learning environments and experimented with emerging ecologies that urge towards a change of perspective. School as a fluid form lend an opportunity to experiment with the methodology of learning itself. There The Swamp School argues for an amphibian pedagogy in the field of the ideas of radical pedagogy (Paulo Freire), expanding them towards trans-and post-disciplinarily, as well as learning from and with more-than-human.

Above images: The Swamp School, 16th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, 2018 © Swamp School, photo: Norbert Tukaj

PEDAGOGIES OF CARE

Hosted and curated by Andris Brinkmanis, senior lecturer and the course Leader of BA in Painting and Visual Arts at NABA in Milan and Visiting Professor for the Art Academy of Latvia Curatorial Course, this series of encounters is designed around the legacies of historical figures – from Francisco Ferrer Guardia, Asja Lacis, Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin, to Ivan Illich, Palle Nielsen, bell hooks and David Graeber, among others. Be it theatre, art, anarchist thought or anthropology, many of these important personalities shared common aspirations.

What contemporary practices align with this historical lineage and trajectory, aptly coined by Illich as ‘deschooling’? Contemporary actors such as The Freedom Theatre in Palestine, Grupo Contrafile in Brazil, but also indigenous communities and activist groups, are examples that will help us to understand and locate those contemporary ‘pedagogies of care’ in action, which also go well beyond this very complex and problematic notion.

What do these true educational resources, from which we may learn collectively, have in common and how do they differ from the mainstream pedagogical approaches based on competition, separation and control? When and with the help of which tools can active care become a communal social and political instrument, providing voice and agency, rather than depriving of it? How can notions such as attention, observation, dialogue and listening become key strategies leading towards the creation of new shared ontologies, opening up new scenarios and providing different horizons?

The Urbonas’s talk is in the series that explores the topic of ‘pedagogies of care’ conceived in collaboration with invited guests as well as the community around the David Graeber Institute.

Above images: The Swamp School, 16th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, 2018 © Swamp School. Photo: Nomeda Urbonas

DAVID GRAEBER INSTITUTE

The David Graeber Institute (DGI) provides a platform for projects related both directly to David Graeber’s legacy, developing his ideas and for projects that will take on a life of their own, continuing and contributing to his work. Founders of the Institute believe that a different social narrative has started to emerge which unleashes the political imaginary and reshapes public common sense. It is leading many people throughout the world to challenge the status quo through concrete actions, projects or structures that are making our societies socially and ecologically just and sustainable.

Structure of Affect. Sensing Plants, Doodling Robots. Peat bog plants, peat moss, rain water, HORIBA continuous particulate monitor with X-ray Fluoresce. National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania. Photo: Nomeda Urbonas