Education from Below is a two-year collaborative programme organised between the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, MACBA, Barcelona and WHW, Zagreb.
Education from Below explores art as a place for dialogue, collective learning and imagination. Education doesn't belong only in institutions, but it can be horizontal and come from below, from communities.
The project recognises that art practices can dislocate the usual hierarchies of what should or should not be learned and traditional divisions between theory and practice, and that knowledge does not have to be based on accumulation, but rather on sharing and mutual learning.
The partners will explore new models of art practice based on collective learning and will generate a network of institutions and professionals for sharing methodologies.
Education from Below links three independent programmes for artists, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, PEI at MACBA, and WHW Akademija that each provide important opportunities for artistic development outside of formal education systems. The project will be realised over the course of autumn 2019 – autumn 2021 through seminars, study groups, artist residencies, exhibitions, series of lectures, an international conference, a collective reader and a common web platform, involving many artists, thinkers and educators.
How will we meet again?
Urban thinker Gabriella Gomez-Mont and artist Antonio Vega Macotela (RA 11/12) are currently in residence in one of the houses abutting the Oude Kerk.
In their Red Door Project – which refers to the red door of the house – they take the Oude Kerk as epicentre and starting point to host a series of transdisciplinary conversations in order to open a discussion, exploring with others new ways of imagining and reuniting in a post-pandemic and racialised world.
With Amsterdam as its backdrop, the project allows them to explore how art spills over into other areas of knowledge, influencing urban and social reality in different ways, connecting to other actors and spheres in the city, and beyond.
More details on the specific programmes will be announced soon.
The Red Door Project is part of the Education from Below programme, and the residency is realised with the support of the Oude Kerk.