The Public School

Classes proposed by the public, spaces where people have an opportunity to register and, once there are enough participants, to express their interests collectively: that is the Public School. Since its inception in Los Angeles in 2007, it has multiplied and now has schools in Chicago, Philadelphia, Nueva York, Paris, Brussels, San Juan, Los Angeles, St. Erme, Helsinski, Durham and Berlin. This project sometimes acts as a space, sometimes as a network and sometimes as a collective text, when it creates conferences and activities such as the traveling ‘13-day seminar’.

In MDE11 The Public School will be facilitating the production of a resource common to the people and institutions of Medellín. This resource, which mobilizes as a school that is self-managed by its participants, functions as a living archive of ideas, desires and needs that are coordinated through “class proposals”. When the proposals are gathered, they act as the collective imaginaries of what is happening, at the same time as they are nourished by the knowledge, experiences and practices of Medellín’s communities; such proposals are generated by the city’s individuals and collectives.

A presentation space, a library, a video room, internet rooms and a small printing press characterize this school’s infrastructure. When it moves throughout the city, in different communities and contexts, the territory of a school without walls and without a neighborhood, a school the size of the city itself, is defined.

Within an open pedagogical framework, participants can take on any role, thus resisting regulatory behavior and forms of practice. According to the members of The Public School, this is the only way to navigate through the system and interact with others. The interest does not lie in knowing how pedagogical experimenting in art can place limits on the public, but in ways of generating new audiences.

Website
www.thepublicschool.org

Links of interest
Apublicschool.org
Proposals: Apublicschool.org/propuestas.php
Blog: Apublicschool.org/blog

 

MDE11 participation