Unlearning excercises :

Unlearning excercises : art organizations as a site for unlearning / Art organizations as a site for unlearning general editors, Binna Choi, Annette Krauss, Yolande van der Heide. - Utrecht : Casco Art Institute, 2018. - 231 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword: unlearning to unlearn / Introduction / Unlearning exercises / Toilet (T)issues #1: toilet tissue and other formless organizational matters / Lifelong learning and the professionalized learner / The imperative for self-attainment: from cradle to grave / Toilet (T)issues #3: against all odds--migrant domestic labor struggle and forms of organizing / Sites for unlearning in the museum / Decolonizing art institutes from a labor point of view / Afterword: have you had a productive day? / Kerstin Stakemeier and Marina Vishmidt -- Liz Allan and Yolande van der Heide -- The Shifting Team at Casco and Annette Krauss -- Antariksa, Binna Choi, Emily Pethick, Ferdiansyah Thajib, and Syafiatudina -- Annette Krauss -- Andrea Phillips -- Jacob Apostol, Binna Choi, Joy Melanie Escano, Annette Krauss, Faisol Iskandar, Ismiatun, Sakiko Sugawa, Yolande van de Heide, and Erminah Zaenah -- Nancy Jouwe -- Binna Choi and Yolande van der Heide -- Binna Choi and Annette Krauss.

Learning is often progress-oriented, institutionally driven, and focused on the accumulation of knowledge, skills and behaviour. In contrast, unlearning is directed towards embodied forms of knowledge and the (un)-conscious operation of ways of thinking and doing. Unlearning denotes an active critical investigation of normative structures and practices in order to become aware and get rid of taken-for-granted "truths" of theory and practice. This book shares the process of unlearning, taking art and art institutions as sites for unlearning and Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons as an experimental case. Unlearning at an art organization has led to collective unlearning exercises that express the conditions, modalities, and implications of a particular group of art workers. The business of running an art institution is irrevocably tied up with the anxiety and stress of constantly "being busy" making things visible in competitive and hierarchical conditions. This busyness causes the habitual undervaluing of what often remains invisible: so-called reproductive works such as cleaning, fixing, and caring. Unlearning processes make way for social transformations that lead towards the culture of equality and difference which we call the culture of the commons.

9789492095534 (paperback) 949209553X (paperback)


Casco, Office for Art, Design, and Theory.


Art--Study and teaching--Philosophy.
Art and society.

N84 / .U55 2018