The Ignorant Art Schools Research Group emerges out of the work carried out under the umbrella of the Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Toward Creative Emancipation exhibition and event programme at Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee, curated by Sophia Yadong Hao. The group includes curator Sophia Yadong Hao (University of Dundee), curator and writer Sarah Perks (Teesside University), curator and artist Paul Stewart (Teesside University) and artist and researcher Edgar Schmitz (Goldsmiths, London).
The group are investigating the intersections of European alternative art pedagogy and recent forms of collective curatorial agency in Global Majority countries. Charting the organisational praxis, spatial politics and power structures of these new forms, the research will provide working models for enhancing socially conscious and transformative approaches to curatorial practice, art education and knowledge production.
Building on the interest generated and the archival material made available through the series of events and exhibitions of The Ignorant Art School programme at Cooper Gallery, the group aims to now bring key protagonists into dialogue in order to pool models and approaches between very different geopolitical and cultural backgrounds. We hope to facilitate long overdue dialogues and assess how these models and approaches are being translated between very different contexts.
