Practising Duets #2 Anna Colin and Gudskul online

Categorised: The Ignorant Art Schools

Traversing artistic, design, curatorial, and research-led practices in the humanities and beyond, Practising Duets is a series of transdisciplinary events organised by The Ignorant Art Schools Collective, a research group of the British Art Network (BAN). This event is a hosted conversation between Dr Anna Colin and Gudskul, two leading practitioners who are coming together to continue a conversation sharing their reflections on knowledge formation, alternative art pedagogies and decoloniality. The event will be chaired by Dr Edgar Schmitz of The Ignorant Art Schools Collective, Reader in Art at Goldsmiths and Director of the Art Research MPhil/ PhD programme there.

The Ignorant Art Schools Collective explores intersections of alternative art pedagogy and new forms of collaborative curatorial agency, the latter often developed outside of Global Majority countries then evident in recent European large scale art events such as ruangrupa’s curation of Documenta 15 in 2022. The collective’s research charts the organisational praxis, spatial politics and power structures of these new forms with the aim of providing working models for enhancing socially conscious and transformative approaches to curatorial practice, art education and knowledge production. The collective’s main researchers are Sophia Yadong Hao (Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee), Dr Edgar Schmitz (Goldsmiths), Dr Paul Stewart and Prof Sarah Perks (both Teesside University).

The Ignorant Art Schools is a current BAN-supported Research Group.

Contributors’ Biographies

Dr Anna Colin has worked as a curator for the past twenty years, whether in a freelance or institutional capacity. Her work is engaged with collaborative processes and cultural practices invested at local,
social, educational, and environmental levels. Invested in counterhegemonic spaces, histories, and figures, her practice straddles the curatorial, the pedagogical, the social, the ecological, and the
horticultural.

In 2013, she co-founded Open School East, an alternative art school and community space in London, then Margate, where she was a director for 8 years. Open School East formed a part of her PhD
which, in exploring multi-public educational and cultural spaces in England since the late 19th century, unpacked the notion of the alternative in relation to governance, spatiality, and chrononormativity.
She splits my time between teaching on the MFA Curating at Goldsmiths, working on small and large-scale projects, writing, and training in horticulture and permaculture design.

Gudskul: Collective Study and Contemporary Art Ecosystem is a public learning space formed by three art collectives in Jakarta: ruangrupa, Serrum and Grafi Huru Hara (DHH). Since the early 2000s, the three have been active in the field of contemporary art by exercising collective and collaborative work. In 2015. these collectives agreed to form a joint ecosystem to adapting values emerging from the collective process: equity, sharing, solidarity, friendship and togetherness. The objective of this learning space is to spread art-cultural work to individuals in order to spark initiative among the public.

Anita ‘Bonit’ Purniawati is Program manager for Gudskul Ecosystem, Coordinator for Subject Gudskul Collective Studies, and Finance Manager for the Grafis Huru Hara Printmaking Collective.

Gesyada Siregar is a writer, curator and art organiser and has worked in ruangrupa since 2013. She is interested in supporting young artists, re-reading Indonesian Art Writing from 1940-1990, and explores archives, astrology, experiential storytelling, games, media, and public programming as an art pedagogical module.

Tutik Indras Oktafia is the Librarian and Gudskul Archivist. With a background in library and information science, she is looking for away to combine archives management with arts collectives and especially Gudskul.

Learn more about The Ignorant Art Schools by visiting their Research Group Page