November 19–20, 2016
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Pioneer Works is pleased to announce the first Alternative Art School Fair featuring a showcase of 50 experimental art schools from around the world that map a growing landscape of innovative educational models.
Pioneer Works and AASF organizers Catherine Despont (Co-Director of Education at Pioneer Works); Alexandre Gurita (Director of IHEAP and Biennale de Paris), and Dylan Gauthier (Sunview Luncheonette, Co-Founder of Mare Liberum) will bring this global phenomenon to greater public awareness through interactive booths and a diverse roster of public programming that examines the role of arts education in the evolution of contemporary society. In keeping with the spirit of these schools, participation is free and each school has liberty to design and organize their booths.
In recent years, the arts have seen an unprecedented increase in cross-disciplinary practices. Artists across the globe are engaging in the social sciences, questioning institutional structures, and challenging outdated divisions in academic disciplines. In conjunction with this growing movement, there has been a surge of unconventional educational initiatives that are becoming significant forces in the effort to reimagine pedagogical experimentation and drive cultural evolution. These diverse educational initiatives operate with a wide range of missions and theoretical approaches that see the artist as a defining figure in the development of new methodologies for hybridized disciplines. Even when small in scale, these exploratory schools provide vital models of cultural critique and broaden the prevailing expectations of classroom environments and means of dissemination.
The AASF programming serves as a point of departure for participants to exchange resources, share missions, and foster relationships within the community to help elucidate the often-daunting process of starting or attending such a school. As part of the main stage event, Pioneer Works will host a keynote panel discussion on the role of the artist in society and ways that arts education engages with and defines cultural evolution. Among other questions, the public programming will ask what future pathways through arts education might look like, and discuss how to involve regions that have no art schools or lack arts education in their public schools.
The Alternative Art School Fair, including keynote presentations, workshops, and exclusive interviews with participants, will be streamed live and archived by Clocktower Productions on clocktower.org.
Tickets to the fair are 15 USD for a single day and 20 USD for the full weekend.
Participating organizations include:
AAPG–Alternative Art Program Guatemala (Guatemala City, Guatemala), AltMFA (London, UK), Anhoek School (New York, USA), Archeworks (Chicago, USA), Arthur Fournier Fine and Rare (New York, USA), Arts Letters & Numbers (New York, USA), ASCII Project (Mohansein Giza, Egypt), Beta-Local (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Black Mountain School (Black Mountain, NC, USA), Booklyn (New York, USA), Brooklyn Art Library (New York, USA), Brooklyn Institute for Social Research (New York, USA), Center for Art Analysis (Bucharest, Romania), COLLABOR (São Paolo, Brasil), Common Field (Online), Enroll Yourself (London, UK), Inventory Press (New York, USA), Islington Mill Art Academy (Salford, UK), Grizedale Arts (Coniston, Lake District, UK), OSSAI–Open Source and Space Administration Institute for Alternative Research (New York, USA), Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency (Saugatuck, MI, USA), NERTM–New Earth Resiliency Training Module (New York, USA), Provisions Library (Washington DC, USA), School of Apocalypse (New York, USA), School of the Future (New York, USA), School for Poetic Computation (New York, USA), Shift/Work (Edinburgh, Scotland), SoCE–School of Critical Engagement (Los Angeles, USA / Oslo, Norway / Accra, Ghana / International), SOMA (Mexico City, Mexico), Sommerskolen (Stavanger, Norway), Spring Sessions (Amman, Jordan), Sunview Luncheonette (New York, USA), The Art & Law Program (New York, USA), The Black School (New York, USA), The Public School (Los Angeles, USA / Brussels, Belgium / International), The School of Making Thinking (New York, USA), The Southland Institute (Los Angeles, USA), The Zz School of Print Media (Kansas City, USA), Thinker Space (Philadelphia, USA), TOMA–The Other MA (Westcliff-on-Sea, UK), Transart Institute (New York, USA), Uncertainty School (Seoul, South Korea / New York, USA), UNIDEE–University of Ideas (Biella, Italy), Utopia School (New York, USA / Denmark / & possibly other locations / International), Zone Books (New York, USA)
Contact: Becky Elmquist, [email protected], T 917 971 9401
