Unlearning/relearning in uncertain times across continents, culture and care practices
This 'unconference' aims to be a conversation that reflects, discusses and proposes ways of engaging dialogue and research methods online across oceans, different cultures and ways of caring in the ongoing era of uncertainty.
The conversation will be facilitated by two presenters who are co-ordinators of a Shared Campus theme group. These two people have never met in real life, yet over the last year, with oceans and time zones apart, have spent many times a week ‘meeting’ online. They organise, brainstorm, put out fires, alight fires and spark new ways of working and thinking, all the while checking in with each other’s dogs, finding out about their multiple linguistic skills, sharing recipes and commiserating over the state of the world.
Last year, as the two people had just met, they presented at the DEL conference the first iteration of their theme group’s project at the DEL conference. The presentation spoke about unlearning within the theme of decolonisation and discussed ways to break down hierarchical structures within creative practices. This year’s proposal continues with last year’s themes, although more zoomed in (pun intended), focusing on the experience of the two co-ordinators and how the flexibility in uncertain times have brought them a unique tenacity for facilitating conversations, gaging interests and developing methods of care among themselves and others within the theme group they co-ordinate. It looks at the different ways in which adapting their methods to the new situation involved unlearning habits of working together ‐ especially those that replicate hierarchical structures.
More importantly, this unconference wants to start a conversation about the concept of care in the ongoing uncertain times, as colleagues, friends and strangers who have never met, yet closely working and forging professional connections and degrees of intimacy.
The conversation will be facilitated by two presenters who are co-ordinators of a Shared Campus theme group. These two people have never met in real life, yet over the last year, with oceans and time zones apart, have spent many times a week ‘meeting’ online. They organise, brainstorm, put out fires, alight fires and spark new ways of working and thinking, all the while checking in with each other’s dogs, finding out about their multiple linguistic skills, sharing recipes and commiserating over the state of the world.
Last year, as the two people had just met, they presented at the DEL conference the first iteration of their theme group’s project at the DEL conference. The presentation spoke about unlearning within the theme of decolonisation and discussed ways to break down hierarchical structures within creative practices. This year’s proposal continues with last year’s themes, although more zoomed in (pun intended), focusing on the experience of the two co-ordinators and how the flexibility in uncertain times have brought them a unique tenacity for facilitating conversations, gaging interests and developing methods of care among themselves and others within the theme group they co-ordinate. It looks at the different ways in which adapting their methods to the new situation involved unlearning habits of working together ‐ especially those that replicate hierarchical structures.
More importantly, this unconference wants to start a conversation about the concept of care in the ongoing uncertain times, as colleagues, friends and strangers who have never met, yet closely working and forging professional connections and degrees of intimacy.