Learning Outside The Lines
Contribute an experience-as-artwork to the King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA)’s Learning Outside The Lines, an online collection of artworks about early educational moments that break the rules of standardized education. The project is free and open for contributions by anyone, anywhere in the world 18+ years of age.
How to participate
Think of a time that you had an impactful non-standard K-8th grade (typically 4-14 years old) educational experience. Try to reframe it as an artwork. Come up with a title, date, location, and list of collaborators for the experience, then write out the story of the experience but try to do it the way you would write a project description. If you have some kind of documentation like a photo of the experience include that, if not you could make a drawing, or recreate the experience and take a photo, etc. or if you don’t want to do that you can leave the documentation out. You can read artworks other people have submitted here.
Artworks in Learning Outside The Lines focus on learners’ perspectives rather than teachers’ perspectives. The person telling the story is an artist pointing to a particularly influential experience and claiming that memory as an artwork in this present moment. Contributions will be archived on the project website, which will be highlighted on June 7, 2020 during Assembly 2020. Learning Outside The Lines is organized by KSMoCA team members Harrell Fletcher, Lisa Jarrett, Roz Crews and Amanda Leigh Evans. Learn more.
Assembly: a co-authored social practice conference
Assembly 2020 is a free 3-day symposium of dynamic and thought-provoking experiences and socially-engaged collaborative projects presented by the MFA Art and Social Practice Program at Portland State University. 2020 marks the seventh iteration of the annual conference. This year, Assembly will be held virtually and will include the release of a companion publication.
Dates: June 5–7, 2020
Registration: Register for one or all events (hosted via Zoom) and review Assembly’s schedule online.
The King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) is a contemporary art museum and social practice project inside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School, a public elementary school in NE Portland, OR. Founded in 2014 by Portland State University professors Lisa Jarrett and Harrell Fletcher, KSMoCA connects public school students with internationally renowned artists through collaborative workshops, exhibitions, artists lectures and site-specific commissions. KSMoCA’s programs are developed in partnership with the Dr. MLK Jr. School community, PSU’s School of Art + Design faculty and students, and renowned contemporary artists.
Students learn through experience about museum practices by participating in KSMoCA as curators, preparators, artists, gallerists, writers, and docents. The project reimagines how museums, public schools, and universities can work together to shift culture and perspectives by creating radical intersections for sharing resources across organizations.
Portland State University’s MFA in Art and Social Practice is a 3-year, flexible residency program that combines individual research, group work, and experiential learning. The program’s blend of critical and professional practice, progressive pedagogy, collaborative social engagement, and transdisciplinary exploration produces an immersive educational environment. The program course encourages students to shape the direction of their own education and continually develop the program as a whole. Students connect their art practice to research in the field of Social Practice through electives and community partnerships, promoting cross-disciplinary engagement. Graduating students each produce a public graduate project, an in-depth written text exploring a relevant connection to their practice, and a public artist lecture that surveys their work in the program.
