Exercise to Unlearn the Canon
2019
How do we learn anew?
How to deal with the transformation towards equity, when the more subtle happenings of injustices are based on sensational experiences of multiple individuals, rather than a set of fixed factors that can be delivered? Can we literally embody these experiences (=learning) and in doing so, subvert the status quo (=unlearning) and envision a future of empathy, cooperation and plurality?
”Exercise to Unlearn the Canon” is an invitation to practice changing power dynamics through tactile and bodily engagement. As a series of experiential performative interventions, the participants become the material itself. Taking the analysis and perspectives of intersectional feminist scholars such as Sara Ahmed and Kimberlé Crenshaw as a starting point, the exercises explore the capabilities of our bodies to extend the individual experience of our environment and thus provoke behavioural change.
The performative intervention in three parts was developed as part of the exhibition “Add to the Cake: Transforming the roles of female practitioners” by Foreign Legion and collectively activated during the Museum’s Night at Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden (DE), 6 July 2019 and FORMS OF ACTIVISM - Junior Design Research Assembly at Bern Academy of Arts (CH), 22 November 2019.
Exercise to Unlearn the Canon activated at FORMS OF ACTIVISM, 2019.
Exercise to Unlearn the Canon activated at FORMS OF ACTIVISM, 2019.
Exercise to Unlearn the Canon activated at FORMS OF ACTIVISM, 2019.
1. Do the Work, spatial illustration.
2. Killing the Joy of the Seated, spatial illustration.
3. Say Her Name, spatial illustration.
Exercise to Unlearn the Canon activated at Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, 2019.
Exercise to Unlearn the Canon activated at Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, 2019.