The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in #2 | To Be Potential

About

The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #2: To Be Potential is an exhibition and event project navigating experiments in art education and alternative pedagogical initiatives from the early 20th Century to the present, including:

The Bauhaus, the Basic Course in Newcastle, Anti-university London, Copenhagen Free University, the Environmental Art course at Glasgow School of Art, Edinburgh Arts Summer School, Free University New York, GUDSKUL in Jakarta, The Hedgeschoolproject in Ireland, the Hornsey Sit-in of 1968, The White Room in Reading and Womanifesto in Thailand, and The Rooftop Institute in Hong Kong, amongst many others. 

Declaring that our collective future is determined not by what we know, but by how we create and share knowledge, Sit-in #2: To Be Potential activates how artistic practice as pedagogy dares education, in the words of bell hooks, to be ‘the practice of freedom’.
 
Political in origin, radical in intent and emancipatory by nature, this radical pedagogy is an inherently social practice. Subverting hierarchies between ‘those who think they know’ and ‘those who assume they don’t’, artistic practice as pedagogy is a global phenomenon that recognises no conceptual, discursive or intellectual limits. Characterised by an ethics of equal access and an ethos of generous solidarity, together the radical pedagogical practices featured in Sit-in #2: To Be Potential transform knowledge from a capitalist commodity to an emancipatory power available to all.
 
Juxtaposing significant and un(der) explored case studies from the Global North and the Global South, Sit-in #2: To Be Potential rethinks and unsettles the conventions, hierarchies and economies of access that haunt the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Placing emphasis on knowledge as a collective experience and communal act, Sit-in #2: To Be Potential will occupy and extend the social and political implications of radical pedagogies from the early 20th century to the present.

Artists and Artists' collectives featured: Anne Bean, Graham Challifour, Rita Donagh and Rod Melvin; Richard Hamilton; David Harding; Tom Hudson; Jakob Jakobsen; Lawan Jirasuradej; Glenn Loughran; Gudskul (Jakarta); Rooftop Institute (Hong Kong); Womanifesto (Thailand).

Sit-in Curriculum #2 contributors: Rabindranath X Bhose, GUDSKUL, Ashanti Harris, Lola Olufemi, Harriet Sutcliffe, and Ranjana Thapalyal.

Associate Occupier: Jade Montserrat.

The Ignorant Art School
Composed of five ‘Sit-ins’ The Ignorant Art School is a long-term exhibition and event project bringing together artists, designers, educators, activists, cultural workers, students and other publics to question what art education is and whom it serves. Enthused with revolutionary solidarity and organised as a collaborating collective The Ignorant Art School creatively co-constitutes radical blueprints for a socially transformative art education that opens towards an emancipated future.