[artinfo] Call for applications: (Un-)Learning Place

[Art & Education]

Call for applications: (Un-)Learning Place (as part of Das Neue Alphabet)

Application deadline: September 15

Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
Germany

The present is characterized by a crisis of the 
established epistemic-political order. Outdated 
categories and terms no longer function and 
representational logics fail to grasp the 
entanglement of knowledge production in times 
where the distinction between producers and 
recipients of knowledge dissolves. Increasingly 
global societies experience a sharp rise in 
social complexity, accelerated by digital 
infrastructures. In this situation, it is 
necessary to unlearn established modes of 
referring to the world and to rethink methods of 
constructing, situating and criticizing reality.

During the Opening Days of HKW's new long-term 
project Das Neue Alphabet in January 2019, HKW 
will set up a space for gathering, discussion and 
workshops-a unique (Un-)Learning Place curated by 
Boris Buden and Olga von Schubert. From January 
9-13, 2019, international participants are 
invited to take part in (Un-)Learning Tracks to 
work with curatorial, artistic, or activist 
strategies in close collaboration with 
self-organized research collectives and 
independent artists and curators.

How can a library of African diasporic writing be 
cataloged without reproducing oppressive 
categories? Can the necro-aesthetics of Natural 
History Museums be reframed by changing museum 
taxonomies?

How do our body molecules tell stories of their 
century-old political suppression and how can we 
reread them? What are modes of resistance in 
digital network cultures and what could spaces of 
learning and unlearning look like in a world 
permeated by institutional infrastructures of 
dominance and cultural supremacy?

In eight (Un-)Learning Tracks the (Un-)Learning 
Place seeks out strategies to navigate through 
the inherent classification and ordering systems 
of archives, libraries, museums, institutional 
architectures, and digital networks and offers 
approaches to situating and negotiating research 
in artistic, site-specific, poetic, and bodily 
practices. In a lexicographical laboratory, by 
cataloguing a library, by rearranging existing 
museum taxonomies, by reconfiguring data networks 
and spaces, and by poetically transgressing 
existing terminologies and given spatial 
allocations, participants of the (Un-)Learning 
Place are invited to challenge established 
perspectives and collectively develop ways of 
restructuring the order of things.

With (Un-)Learning Tracks convened by Fehras 
Publishing Practices, ASSET productions, 
knowbotiq, Telekommunisten, Tactical Technology 
Collective, raumlabor berlin, Each One Teach One 
(EOTO) e.V. and diffrakt | centre for theoretical 
periphery.

How to participate: Participants of the 
(Un-)Learning Place will be able to attend 
several of the (Un-)Learning Tracks. Each track 
will offer an intense practical workshop as well 
as a specific theoretical entry point to the 
program of the Opening Days of Das Neue Alphabet. 
In concentrated working groups of 8-10 people, 
projects in response to the lectures,screenings 
and artistic performances will be pursued in 
dialogue with the organizers of the tracks. 
Please let us know three preferences for the 
tracks you would like to attend and state the 
reason why in your motivation letter.

Participants will also be able to attend the 
public program of the Opening Days of Das Neue 
Alphabet, with contributions by Kader Attia, 
Filipa César, Kate Crawford, Simon Denny, Karin 
Harrasser, Yuk Hui, Sybille Krämer, Trevor 
Paglen, Felix Stalder, Hito Steyerl, and many 
more. In daily plena, participants of the 
(Un-)Learning Place will have the change to 
exchange their ideas with the scholars and 
artists from the Opening Days program.

Linguistic and poetic observers will act as 
mediators between the public opening program and 
the non-public (Un-)Learning Place, among them 
Gigi Argyropoulou, Gilly Karjevsky and Nicoline 
van Harskamp.

The Call for application with the application 
requirements and extensive descriptions of each 
track can be found on 
<https://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=23113&L=159589&F=H>hkw.de/en/DNA

Das Neue Alphabet (2019-2021) is supported by the 
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and 
the Media due to a ruling of the German 
Bundestag. Haus der Kulturen der Welt is 
supported by the Federal Government Commissioner 
for Culture and the Media as well as by the 
Federal Foreign Office.

Contact:
Caroline Adler
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
<mailto:newalphabet at hkw.de>newalphabet at hkw.de
T +49 (0)30 39787 174