Teaching tools
Tools for putting theory into practice, for exploring complex issues, for doing research, for learning new skills, for organizing and documenting, and for critical reflection.
Photo: Claire Hind
WAYS TO WANDER (UK)
2015 – present
Claire Hind
WHAT is the practice?
Walking as artistic practice, developing scores and texts to explore, experience sites and spaces in new ways. Walking art sharpens the senses so we can focus a little more closely and perceptively with our surroundings or be challenged by how surroundings have been planned.
WHY was it initiated?
This practice explores the connection between walking, “scoring” and writing. Developing scores for walking and wellbeing. Walking with a different focus in urban (or rural) landscapes makes the walker see and experience environments differently, as well as experiencing the body in different ways. It is a sensory listening practice.
HOW does it work?
Walking practices alone or in groups, working with different tempos, and exercises of walking together. Then inventing and developing scores for others to experience. And finally, to use the walking experiences as a source for creative writing and making new scores.
KEY TOOLS:
- Teaching tools
- Dialogue tools
- Fieldwork tools
Learn more
Photo: AZA
ENVIRONMENT EMBODIMENT (NO)
2020 – 2024
Fernanda Branco
WHAT is the practice?
The artistic research project explores the concept of agency in the context of encounters between body and environment. Proposing the body as an environment, the project draws from uncanny, poetic, and embodied perspectives.
WHY was it initiated?
The developed embodied practice of movement-voice-environment is based on regenerative modes of working. It approaches states of wonder, attentiveness, evocation, observation, listening, sensory awareness and perspectives of becoming with these experiences.
HOW does it work?
Through the simple act of walking backwards Branco opens up the doors to artistic exploration through a multitude of methods. Manifested in The Dragonfly Constellation, the process of co-creation with places and matters while also collaboratively with other artists, primarily in dialogue with the epistemologies and cosmologies of the Global South are brought forward.
KEY TOOLS:
- Teaching tools
- Dialogue tools
- Fieldwork tools
Learn more
Photo: Dear Climate
DEAR CLIMATE (USA)
2012 - present
Una Chaudhuri, Fritz Ertl, Oliver Kellhammer, Marina Zurkow
WHAT is the practice?
Dear Climate is a thought-provoking art campaign that aims to put climate change into the forefront of our minds, anchored by peoples’ personal experiences.
WHY was it initiated?
It is an ongoing creative-research project that hacks the aesthetics of instructional signage and the techniques of meditation to lead viewers and listeners towards a better informed, more realistic, and more affectionate relationship to the more-than-human world, including geo-physical forces and other species.
HOW does it work?
Through a multitude of methods such as posters, guided meditations, installations, workshops, and online archive of letters, the project aims to not only make the individual voices heard, but also conveying the messages in creative ways.
KEY TOOLS
- Teaching tools
- Tactical tools
- Material tools
Learn more
Photo: Christopher Clark
THEATRE IN THE BACKYARD [SA]
2013
Mhlanguli George, Ikhwelo Arts Community Theatre Group, Coffeebeans Routes
WHAT is the practice?
It is “a group of actors without an auditorium or a stage”. An intimate site-specific theatre experience performed in private backyards in township neighbourhoods.
WHY was it initiated?
Theatre in the Backyard was created to make theatre accessible to communities historically excluded from formal arts spaces. It fosters active citizenship by encouraging conversation across social divides, amplifying township stories, and reclaiming domestic spaces as platforms for dialogue.
HOW does it work?
Each performance takes place in a host’s backyard (site-specific), with audiences of around sitting in close proximity to the actors. Plays are typically 30 minutes long and often explore local social issues. The actors make use of found props, i.e., any everyday objects they find available to them, whilst the audience, for whom there is no dedicated seating, are left to negotiate their way around the space and the performers. After each performance, the audience and artists engage in open conversation over shared food about the themes presented. This intimate setting collapses barriers between performer and spectator, creating shared ownership and meaning-making of the storytelling space.
KEY TOOLS:
- Teaching tools
- Participation tools
Learn more:
https://www.sa-venues.com/things-to-do/westerncape/theatre-in-the-backyard/
https://coffeebeansroutes.com/theatre-in-the-backyard/
https://youtu.be/05_UNv38L84?si=S1Vyqv1Z7NqG00PT