The work takes into account power relations and hierarchies that have developed historically, and which pervade the fields of art and education by means of, amongst others, eurocentrism and measures to economise worldwide, and with its methods and questions develops suggestions on how to shift these.
“The project, ‘Another Roadmap School’ is concerned with colonial histories, such as how ideas on education and art travelled across the globe and were appropriated. Research groups in 22 cities work together in the network to study the history, politics and alternatives of cultural education in a global context. Eurocentrism and the hierarchies between academic and practical knowledge as well as the ‘geopolitics of knowledge’ cannot just be seen as an isolated research subject, as these are the core problems of the project organization itself, which, despite the efforts of the participants to counter these, keep recurring. For example, in communication: English as the only language of communication produces exclusions and reifies the imperialist structure. But how does one hold videoconferences in several languages at the same time? How can one hold the collective attention in such a far-flung network and in precarious conditions, so that, when one is in a hurry, the translation does not suffer? The network is managed by a committee of members of different research groups in order to avoid a recurrence of the prevailing power structures between those who have easier access to resources (those who are situated at universities and in the global north) and such members who have limited access (freelancers, those working in the precariat and in the global south). How can a decentralized structure and rotating management be maintained when the project is dependent on support from funding bodies, which are extensively shaped by the described hierarchies?” Nora Landkammer (Project: Another Roadmap School) “Discover the source of domination first, and then to question it. Reversing the process is not possible. This is why the project ‘Art Affiliators’ allows itself the time to discover the Zurich arts and culture landscape, to try it out and see what it feels like. With this, youth arrive at a reflected relationship to art and culture. The goal is for the young people to be able to decide and give reasons on exactly where and how they wish to negotiate the field of art, or, how they could respond to what already exists.”