Gathering knowledge in the gaps between our teeth
Can the cracking of a hazelnut between your teeth or the slow, persistent crushing of a carrot remind you of moments of resistance? What is a hammer doing on a conference table? As part of the Zest Kollektiv, I developed and implemented the workshop “Gathering Knowledge in the Gaps Between Our Teeth” for the conference Learnings/Unlearnings: Environmental Pedagogies, Play, Policies, and Spatial Design (2024).
In earlier artistic (self-)education formats, we often avoided contradiction, friction, and unmoderated moments, yet we realised that it is precisely within these cracks and gaps that deeper engagement, radical co-creation, and new forms of learning can emerge. Building on this insight, we invited participants to explore what such gaps can offer — through airy textures, cracking sounds, and ambivalent flavours. While peeling, piercing, and twirling vegetables, we questioned capitalist ideas of productivity that shape institutional learning environments and imagined how they might be transformed. Drawing on relational table and feast of frictions — methodologies we developed within the collective — participants collaboratively created a shared meal reflecting on their own spaces of togetherness: self-organised collectives, regulars’ tables, protests, interventions, angry lunches, film nights, or open letters — moments that nurture solidarity and care within rigid institutional structures.
Concept & Implementation: Zest Kollektiv (Lu Herbst, Lucie Jo Knilli, Charlotte Perka & Lioba Wachtel)
Format: Workshop at the conference Learnings/Unlearnings: Environmental Pedagogies, Play, Policies, and Spatial Design (KTH School of Architecture & Konstfack)
Location: Färgfabriken, Stockholm (SE)
Language: English
Year: 2024
Gathering knowledge in the gaps between our teeth
Can the cracking of a hazelnut between your teeth or the slow, persistent crushing of a carrot remind you of moments of resistance? What is a hammer doing on a conference table? As part of the Zest Kollektiv, I developed and implemented the workshop “Gathering Knowledge in the Gaps Between Our Teeth” for the conference Learnings/Unlearnings: Environmental Pedagogies, Play, Policies, and Spatial Design (2024).
In earlier artistic (self-)education formats, we often avoided contradiction, friction, and unmoderated moments, yet we realised that it is precisely within these cracks and gaps that deeper engagement, radical co-creation, and new forms of learning can emerge. Building on this insight, we invited participants to explore what such gaps can offer — through airy textures, cracking sounds, and ambivalent flavours. While peeling, piercing, and twirling vegetables, we questioned capitalist ideas of productivity that shape institutional learning environments and imagined how they might be transformed. Drawing on relational table and feast of frictions — methodologies we developed within the collective — participants collaboratively created a shared meal reflecting on their own spaces of togetherness: self-organised collectives, regulars’ tables, protests, interventions, angry lunches, film nights, or open letters — moments that nurture solidarity and care within rigid institutional structures.