This unprecedented period of global disruption has revealed the need to explore how we can responsibly and carefully work together in the reality of physical distancing. While the overwhelming global trend seems to be to increase the time we spend in front of devices, we are calling on people dedicated to developing and deepening practices that explore intimacy at a distance, through pedagogies and artistic strategies; people who are interested in creating collective (un)learning spaces that engage body and mind. We believe you are reflecting on and seeking out new ways of maintaining or developing intimacies beyond or through digital devices and tools. We wish to create a space for exchange and common experience, in order to deepen our understanding of the possibilities and threats of this space. Our laboratory will be a chance to collect our observations, share experiences and practices that have arisen from these times, and to test them in the safe environment of the participants of this laboratory.
Our online and offline seminar/lab Re–Directing: East (RDE) x Empathic Pedagogies will take the form of a peer-learning and peer-created workshop, a group residency and a research opportunity for a group of international and local makers, thinkers and organisers. Although it has been hosted annually by the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, in the form of a physical meeting, this year it was necessary to translate it – at least in part – into the online reality. We would like to carefully observe this situation in real time, experimenting ways in which we can be together, in spite of our physical distanceWe are inviting you to take part in this process, and to possibly participate in our lab in October. The lab will be fully co-created by its participants. We want the programme of the lab to include valuable group and individual activities, and to involve an exploration of our practices. Re–Directing: East (RDE) x Empathic Pedagogies seminar/lab will gather participants from around the world, who will be invited as a result of this process:
Additionally, there will be more participants – 4-6 current residents and collaborators of U–jazdowski and Biennale Warszawa.The month-long group laboratory in October will be preceded by an online warm-up meeting. At the end of the seminar, each of the participants will be asked to share a written reflection or script of activity that will later be available online.
Language of the seminar/lab: English
Who is invited to participate: We are looking for makers, thinkers and organisers; practitioners of “empathic pedagogies” on the crossroads of art, education and activism currently residing in Poland.
Who are weRDE 2020 is curated in collaboration between the U–jazdowski Residencies curators – Marianna Dobkowska and Julia Harasimowicz – and members of the Empathic Pedagogies Network (Red de Pedagogias Empaticas), in partnership with Biennale Warszawa.
The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art is one of Poland’s biggest art centres with a variety of programmes, including exhibitions, performances, film screenings, and residencies. It draws particular attention to the relationship between art and society, as well as interdisciplinarity, interactivity, site-specific productions, various forms of collaboration, networking, and co-production. It is a space for artistic exploration, research, workshops, and experiments, more than a traditional exhibition space.
Biennale Warszawa is an interdisciplinary cultural institution conducting artistic, research, educational and social activities. It operates at the intersection of various disciplines, combining the area of culture and art with the area of theory and research, as well as social activism.
Empathic Pedagogies Network gathers cultural institutions and independent agents from Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Spain, Norway, and Poland, which, under the perspective of common wellbeing, work as a living and multicultural agency dedicated to exploring the hybridisations and limits between artistic and educational practices for social change. They hold international and local meetings, create research groups and laboratories for the development of community strategies, analytical tools, and self-criticism methods and practices, which they then implement in their work and public programmes.
A month-long online and offline residency: 1—30 October 2020
Submission deadline: 15 July 2020
The results will be announced by: 30 July 2020