The reader Class Running in Circles was produced in the context of the thematic seminar Contemporary Issues in Art and Design Education, which took place from September until December 2018. Each chapter of this reader is a response of the Master of Education in Arts students to the problematics put in the center during the seminar’s kick-off: a three-day visit to the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. We don’t need another hero.
An important point of focus in this were the potentials of and possibilities towards alternative modes of knowledge production. As the curatorial team of the Berlin Biennale states, it is important to refuse seduction “by unyielding knowledge systems and historical narratives that contribute to the creation of toxic subjectivities. We are interested in different configurations of knowledge and power that enable contradictions and complications.”
Starting from their unique contexts and positions as educators, artists or designers, thinkers and citizens, the students addressed the question: What are the mechanisms and languages of different or ‘other’ configurations of knowledge? And how can we practice them? The biennale inspired us to search answers to this question by disturbing our own habit of producing the meaning. Through insecurity in and disturbance of the conventional know-how, this publication is a students’ query for possible ways of teaching and for learning conditions that allow validation of multiple ‘others’ to be part of creating knowledge narratives. They made a conscious choice to publish it in a digital format so that it could be easily shared with others.
We would like to express our gratitude to the people who shared with us their thoughts, practices and struggles and without whom this reader would not be possible: the director and curator of the Mediation of the 10th Berlin Biennale Mona Jas, a member of the Biennale’s curatorial team Thiago de Paula Souza, and artist Khadidiatou Bangoura.
You can find the publication online below: