Giving Agency to the Possible

Notes on the world-disclosing and emancipatory dimensions of unlearning practices through an analysis of the art collective pKp

Abstract

In the art world, experiments are being set up that question hegemonic forms of knowledge production and knowledge distribution, and that try out alternative models of living together. We speak about a dynamic of practices where arts, education and politics are thought of together, often described as 'self-organized gatherings of unlearning practices'. The essay aims to intervene in this tendency through a study of the emancipatory and world disclosing operations and tactics at work within a concrete artistic collective 'Para Institute for Arts and Precarity (pKp)'. Analyzing pKp as unlearning practice, the paper is not so much a critique against learning institutions, but a source of inspiration to reconsider knowledge production and distribution as a collective, sensitive practice.