Assignment 4:
MOTLEY WORKSHOP WEEK
Due on September 9, 2024 before beginning of class
MOTLEY WORKSHOP WEEK
Due on September 9, 2024 before beginning of class
“Ch’ixi amounts to the ‘motley’... and expresses the parallel coexistence of multiple cultural differences that do not extinguish but instead antagonize and complement each other… in a contentious way.” (Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui)
How might we cultivate “educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of [their] living into one of learning, sharing, and caring”? (Ivan Illich)
“Architecture education needs to challenge itself through taking risks and borrowing actively from all other disciplines - and not just the noble and neighboring ones, but from those of the most pragmatic, modest, radical, political and hands-on spatial practices - from biology to care work in the built environment… In so doing, we may witness a welcome dilution of the understanding of what is contemporary architectural culture, of what is an architect, and of what are its tasks as we move toward another material future.” (Charlotte Malterre-Barthes)
“June Jordan mobilized Black and Puerto Rican students to generate knowledge rather than receive it, drawing on their lived experiences in the Harlem community to counter the race, class, and gender power structures embodied and sustained by the university.” (Colomina et al, Radical Pedagogies)
This week is going to be a firehose of workshops and inputs and ideas for your future spaces of collective learning. We will be moving out of our campus classroom and exploring around the city together - think of this week as an itinerant school (one type of school you are welcome to explore moving forward): wherever we hold our dialogues and wherever we learn together is where our ‘school’ is.
Let this week start to clarify the positions and directions of your future school. Pay special attention to the sites we visit; might this be a site or one of a constellation of sites that you would choose? Pay attention to the invited speakers and workshoppers; might they or their organization be someone you would want to work with to co-speculate your future school? Pay attention to the future skills, subjects, and spatial literacies that you can identify and draw out from each input; which future skills would you want centered in your space of collective learning?
This week you will keep a mini folded booklet with you where you will record findings, aha moments, reflection, and ideas from each input, in the form of words/mental maps/sketches/taped-in artifacts. Think of it as your personal ‘mapping’ of week 5. For each separate input:
How might we cultivate “educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of [their] living into one of learning, sharing, and caring”? (Ivan Illich)
“Architecture education needs to challenge itself through taking risks and borrowing actively from all other disciplines - and not just the noble and neighboring ones, but from those of the most pragmatic, modest, radical, political and hands-on spatial practices - from biology to care work in the built environment… In so doing, we may witness a welcome dilution of the understanding of what is contemporary architectural culture, of what is an architect, and of what are its tasks as we move toward another material future.” (Charlotte Malterre-Barthes)
“June Jordan mobilized Black and Puerto Rican students to generate knowledge rather than receive it, drawing on their lived experiences in the Harlem community to counter the race, class, and gender power structures embodied and sustained by the university.” (Colomina et al, Radical Pedagogies)
This week is going to be a firehose of workshops and inputs and ideas for your future spaces of collective learning. We will be moving out of our campus classroom and exploring around the city together - think of this week as an itinerant school (one type of school you are welcome to explore moving forward): wherever we hold our dialogues and wherever we learn together is where our ‘school’ is.
Let this week start to clarify the positions and directions of your future school. Pay special attention to the sites we visit; might this be a site or one of a constellation of sites that you would choose? Pay attention to the invited speakers and workshoppers; might they or their organization be someone you would want to work with to co-speculate your future school? Pay attention to the future skills, subjects, and spatial literacies that you can identify and draw out from each input; which future skills would you want centered in your space of collective learning?
This week you will keep a mini folded booklet with you where you will record findings, aha moments, reflection, and ideas from each input, in the form of words/mental maps/sketches/taped-in artifacts. Think of it as your personal ‘mapping’ of week 5. For each separate input:
- Use the corresponding page of the provided booklet.
- The page should be started while on-site / during the input. You are welcome to return to it afterwards.
- Please include (a) at least one personal reflection/takeaway and/or one question that arose for you and/or one quote from the input, and (b) at least one future skill from each input.
- The way you document is up to you: you can write-out notes, you can sketch, you can make mental maps, you can tape in small artifacts and annotate them, etc.
- At the end of the week, make the ‘cover page’ of the booklet. You could title it “Notes for a [you-fill-in-the-blank] school”
- Consider these questions for reflection:
- What questions arose for me?
- What did I learn? How did I learn what I learned? Is this learning something that I think future spatial practitioners should learn in school?
- Which inputs were the most moving to me? Why? What is it moving me to do or think differently?
- Which site(s) might I want to work with for my project?
- Which organization(s) might I want to work with for my project?
- Which future skills might I want centered in a space of collective learning?
DELIVERABLE
- Digital. Scan both sides of the booklet at 300 dpi, save as .pdf AND as .tiff. On Canvas AND Arena, please submit both .pdf and .tiff. If the file size is too large for Arena, please email it or wetransfer it to Cynthia.
- Physical. Submit the original physical copy on Monday September 9 at the beginning of class.
REFERENCES
- Paulo Freire. Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970.
- Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society. Chapter 6: Learning Webs. 1970.
- bell books. Teaching to Transgress. Chapter 1: Engaged Pedagogy, and Chapter 12: Confronting Class in the Classroom. 1994.
- Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner. What’s Worth Knowing. 1969.
- Silvia Federici. Re-enchanting the World. The University: A Knowledge Common? 2019.
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Lisa Parks. Media Fixes: Thoughts on Repair Cultures 2013.