University
Galerie Antoine Levi
22 January 2015 - 14 March 14 2015

University engages with the legacy of experimental pedagogical models such as the Institute of Phenomenological Studies which emerged as critiques of society’s dominant ideological institutions. These initiatives experimented with self organised forms of education and arose in response to what was perceived as the intellectual rigidity and spiritual exhaustion of established academic structures. Their courses departed from conventional curricula and proposed environments where thought could develop without institutional constraint.

Taking these anti institutional pedagogies as a point of departure, the installation explores the notion of unlearning. Language becomes the central material through which this process unfolds. Nonsense, fragmentation, forgetfulness and endless digression-- gradually displace-- reason, order, function and chronology.

The installation revolves around forms of encryption. Fragmented language, nonlinear narratives, incomplete phrases, reversed handwriting and quasi hieroglyphic signs-- circulate through the space, hinting at meaning while resisting full decipherment.

Quotes drawn from manifestos of experimental schools appear throughout the work, while the installation adopts the paraphernalia and procedural atmosphere of such alternative institutions. University proposes a course, where the roles of teacher and student remain fluid, where childhood shapes the methods of inquiry and where madness and ignorance are welcomed as productive conditions for thought.

Photos by Claire Dorn