La Casa Azul, Tepostlán, Morelos
January 16 through 21, 2015
Estudio SITAC: School Under a Tree and Alumnos47
La Casa Azul, Tepostlán, Morelos
January 16 through 21, 2015
This workshop and retreat was led by architects Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti whose critical pedagogy informs their work Campus in Camps, an experimental university based in the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, Palestine. In a context of extreme political exception, Hilal and Petti address decolonization, communality, and the production of knowledge in crisis situations by eschewing the politics of victimization and traditional hierarchies of academic and institutionalized knowledge in favor of grounded and community-based forms of knowledge that combine theory and practice.
Estudio SITAC: School Under a Tree was organized in collaboration with Alumnos47 and invited participants involved in alternative education and critical pedagogy in Mexico to a six-day residency that explored the Arab concept of “mujarawa” or “neighborliness.”
Estudio SITAC: School Under a Tree focuses on a broader investigation of the formation of democratic and pluralistic environments where participants can learn freely, honestly and enthusiastically in environments that are not confined within the traditional walls of academia, but which cut across different forms of knowledge, integrating aspects of life and dialogue with the larger community. The goal of this Estudio is to explore the processes by which critical learning and egalitarian environments can emerge and influence educational institutions, while seeking a manner of critical intervention for the constitution and strengthening of civic spaces in contemporary realities. How can the attention of educational institutions move from production of knowledge – based on information and skills – to the process of learning – based on shifts in perception, critical approaches, visions and governing principles? Can new forms of education resist the trauma of victimization in social and physical contexts that insist on subjugation? Estudio SITAC: School Under a Tree also examines the increasing criminalization of youth and the alienation of education.