Learning By Doing – A politics of Practice

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The exhibition Learning by Doing: A Politics of Practice aims to shed light on the political and pedagogical dimension of artists’ practices – what and how they do, rather than the objects produced – to examine the transformative potential of art. The exhibition draws its title from the American philosopher John Dewey’s idea that learning should be relevant and practical, not just passive and theoretical, and combines this with the active knowledge production of contemporary art, which often incorporates more abstract disciplines such as politics, economics and philosophy in the artistic process.

The exhibition brings together artists who share an impulse to question the cultural and socio-political context they find themselves in, and who through this approach marshal a unique politics of practice – one that takes upon itself to galvanise other ways of doing, thinking and learning through creative visual practices, diverse collaborations and critical pedagogy. Where works by The Alternative School of Economics and FACTORY WORKERS UNITE reflect the communities that form as part of artists’ social and educational practices, Arendse Krabbe, in collaboration with Mirko Nikolić, and Rosa Johan Uddoh encourage the viewer to reconsider preconceived perspectives, through their self-educational and transformative practices. Common to all the works is a desire to persistent investigation of what connects and separates us from each other and the world around us.

Learning by Doing: A Politics of Practice aims to open a space for conversation about the possibilities and problematics raised by notions of self-education, experimental forms of collective learning, and alternative ways of being together. By focusing on the agency of art as a way of making counter-narratives visible and offering resistance to oppressive ideologies, the underlying premise of the exhibition is the notion of art as useful – for the self, the other, and the community – an anathema to the sort of demands for ‘usefulness’ made of the arts in the cultural policies of neoliberal political parties.

Kilde: SixtyEight Art Institute