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.
Frigiti Tori translated from Surinam means lost stories/memories. It is a series of workshops where Homing aims to strengthen the social and digital framework of their target audience, in this case the community of elderly Surinamese.
In collaborating with this community, Homing wants to open new perspectives for their untold words. Passing on stories is a way of gaining knowledge, digital storytelling through narrative sequencing is prominent in game design. Homing wants to develop a digital interactive game with the senior citizens that is easily accessible to a younger audience, transferring knowledge in a playful and creative form. Culminating in a new digital visual language from boomers to zoomers.
On 2 October 2021, Homing held an ongoing reflective storytelling workshop at Framer Framed drawing from the hearts and minds of the elderly Suriname community, exploring the power of resilience in personal stories of migration and the pandemic. As a continuation of this, a second workshop was held on 13 November at the Amsterdam Museum. Homing participated in the Ac/kademie talk, Art as Social Practice.
Homing is an arts and educational collective, between behavioural psychologist Charlaine Reval and Rijksakademie alum Laura O’Neill (RA 17/18). Their ongoing investigations and projects focus on collaborations with local and global communities, where the relationship between nature/human/technology is key.
This residency is a collaboration with Framer Framed, platform for contemporary art, visual culture and critical theory & practice.