Really Useful Knowledge by Ashkal Alwan

Really Useful Knowledge, led by What, How and for Whom/WHW with Nick Aikens, Rasha Salti, Jelena Vesiç, and Lawrence Abu Hamdan

The notion of ‘really useful knowledge’ originated with the rise of the workers’ awareness of the need for self-education in the early 19th century. In the 1820s and 1830s, workers’ organizations in the UK introduced this phrase to describe the body of knowledge that encompassed various ‘unpractical’ disciplines such as politics, economics and philosophy, as opposed to ‘useful knowledge’ proclaimed as such by business owners, who some time earlier began increasingly investing in the advancement of their businesses through funding the education of workers in ‘applicable’ skills and disciplines such as engineering, physics, chemistry or math.

Starting from research for the Really Useful Knowledge exhibition that WHW curated at Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid (October 2014), this chapter will inquire into ‘really useful knowledge’ from the contemporary perspective, looking into discussions about critical pedagogy as a crucial element of collective struggles. It will be structured along several lines of inquiry related to historical and present instances of collective utilization of existing public resources, actions, and experiments, either forgotten or under threat of eradication.

Please register separately for each workshop by sending an email to .

PROGRAM

Thursday, May 5:
Lecture with Nick Aikens:
“You don’t own me: The implications of user-based art practice for the museum”
8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m

Wednesday, May 6.
Workshop with Nick Aikens: “Arte Útil”
3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
To register, send an email to hwp@ashkalalwan.org

Reading by Rasha Salti
“Be Still My Beating Heart; Three Short Tales”
8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Thursday, May 7:
Workshop with Rasha Salti
“Portrait of the Curator as Platypus; Self-Critical Notes”
3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
To register, send an email to hwp@ashkalalwan.org

Lecture by Jelena Vesić
“Against the Curatorial “Supernow” – Exhibition History and Canons of Contemporaneity”
8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Friday, May 8:
Workshop with Jelena Vesić
“Administration of aesthetics or on underground currents of negotiating artistic jobs; between love and money, money and love”
10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
To register, send an email to hwp@ashkalalwan.org

Workshop with Lawrence Abu Hamdan
“Concerning Voice”
2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
To register, send an email to hwp@ashkalalwan.org