New Alphabet School: #Commonings

Sep 14–18, 2022

Workshop “Code, Layers, Infrastructures” by Loren Britton, Isabel Paehr, Jörn Röder and Kamran Behrouz, New Alphabet School #Coding in New Delhi January 2019, Photo: Annette Jacob

What could a school look like that seeks to make both learning and unlearning a common interrelated practice? How can a space be built around care, refuge, implication and vulnerability, negotiating positions and responsibilities?

How can (un)learners in this space challenge privileges and habits of hierarchy, as well as authorship, productivity and competition? And how could such a school take place inside an institution and carve space for informal, convivial, horizontal modes of participation within it, allowing for gaps, mistakes and things left open. In the twelve editions of the New Alphabet School, the roles of curators and audience blurred. Thinking of knowledge as commons, they were constantly reverted in order to co-create shared space for networked knowledge. By convening again, the participants will explore together what these practices might institute and how they might form an ephemeral school of commoning.

Facilitated by Olga Schubert, Gigi Argyropoulou, Alessandra Pomarico, Mahmoud Al-Shaer and Rahul Gudipudi