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(c) Photo: Marko Markovic, 2019

THE ELSEWHERE SCHOOL

"Research in conviviality" on-going students project 2019/2020

Website: http://www.theelsewhereproject.com/

Fužine, Gorski kotar/ Vienna
 

Science and/or politics; nature and/or culture; facts and/or values. As soon we ask ourselves how artistic and scientific research could mix in different and perplexing ways it seems to be reasonable to postpone this segregating perspective on the world and to use the aforementioned terms not as starting points for our investigations but rather as endpoints of developments and concrete practices of realities that have been mobilized within or outside the laboratory where this segregation in general does not play an important role. 

Mixing Realities:  Which criteria do we follow when we act (or when we not act) in the face of an uncertain future? Can we find, trace, represent those criteria? What kind of criteria do support our decisions: are they scientific in nature, or social or economic, spiritual, or aesthetic etc.? In regard to our issues we shall capture some data of our everyday lives and ask what does it mean to participate in collective experiments and how artists-researchers cope with the "scientification" of our society. How to creatively relate one's own work with ongoing research activities? How to contribute versions and transformations of (scientific) realities, i.e. versions of matters of concern, that help to enrich the operating systems of our societies with options nobody thought of.

We consider the Elsewhere School as both a place and a process: a place with its specificities that make it possible to grow roots and a process that allows the influx and efflux of matter, energy, ideas, and beings, that help to establish companionships in our common world.
 

The Elsewhere School “ Research in conviviality “ on going project 2019/2020

Fužine, Gorski kotar/ Vienna

A proposal for citizens of Fuzine/Lič and for those who (temporarily) want to become one of them.

The old school in Lič is an encouraging but also a sad place. Encouraging because it shows that motivation, tenacity and optimism can keep up traditions and culture. A sad place because it translates "the" big issue that Gorski kotar faces today into a tiny classroom where a teacher is working on the future of the four remaining pupils of the village. At present the fate of this school remains uncertain.

This proposal suggests to install an "Elsewhere School". Of course, this Elsewhere School cannot solve the problem of depopulation of Gorski kotar; and its proposed curriculum does not want to mimic specific programs and pedagogical goals of established educational institutions. Rather this endeavor has a more limited and modest goal: it is about speculating about our future(s): not only about the future of "the somewhere" at Gorski kotar but also of the future of "the elsewhere", a future that we share locally and globally. We think that it is not an easy task to speculate about our futures. We therefore suggest a training ground for speculation, for experiments in speculative research. Scientific and artistic methods of description, representing, and intervening may help to reconnect to a "world" that, as some do lament, we have lost in our busy everydayness.

The Elsewhere School can be elsewhere. But it needs to start somewhere: in Inconvenient Conviviality. Inhabitants of Gorski kotar are proud of the region's historical nickname "Hortus Diabolicus" which definitely but also proudly expresses a taste of inconvenience experienced by many in this part of the world. Inconvenience describes the necessity to find solutions when the road to business-as-usual is blocked. Conviviality comprises the challenges that come along with the attempts to unblock this road: How can we live together? How do we want to live together? How to decide on options? Whom do we welcome in our everyday lives?
 



Students : Jannis Neumann, Miloš Vučićević, Klara Krämer, Lindsey Nicholson, Helen Davy, Naoki Matsuyama, Maria Bacila, Els van Houtert, Alfredo Ledesma Quintana, Paula Flores, Mila Balzhieva. 

Concept & chair: Dr. Bernd Kräftner 

Project collaborators: Brishty Alam and Valerie Deifel

Project coordinator: Marko Markovic

In collaboration with: Local team Fužine

EPK 2020 Rijeka - 27 Neighborhoods team - Branka Vjetičanin and Maja Pratengrazer


 

 

First Excursion

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THE ELSEWHERE SCHOOL
June 23, 2020
Location
Fužine, Gorski kotar/ Vienna