Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization
Join us for a talk and book launch of Anna Colin’s Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization (Sternberg Press and Villa Arson, 2025). The author will introduce the book and her research, and will be joined in a conversation with curator Cindy Sissokho.
Alternative Pedagogical Spaces is a critical inquiry into the establishment, development, and transformation of alternative pedagogical and social spaces. Based on the study of Open School East, the independent art school and community space co-founded by Colin in 2013, this essay-length book explores the instituting factors, organizational life cycles, and alignments and misalignments between values and practices that permeate such a project.
The essay delves into the qualities and prerequisites for multi-public educational organisations. It also scrutinizes the hurdles associated with the effort to remain alternative, including processes of habituation, temptation or pressure to scale up, ethos-bending fundraising exercises, and long tenure, as well as the plain desire for stability and sustainability.
Alternative Pedagogical Spaces proposes where to look for a reconceptualization of waiting, slowness, rest, and longevity, and asks how these ideas may benefit cultural practice and the design of future institutions (or the redesign of existing ones). Overriding the common assumption that success equals longevity, the author searches for institutional models that resist chrononormativity, drawing from social movements, psychotherapy, and permaculture.
The book is part of the series ‘Scratching the Surface’, which presents writing from scholars, historians, theorists, and curators concerned with educational strategies following the legacies of feminism, civil rights struggles, and decolonisation. ‘Scratching the Surface’ is co-published by Sternberg Press and Villa Arson in Nice and is edited by Sophie Orlando and Alice Dusapin.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Anna Colin is an independent curator, educator, researcher and gardener. Among other areas of investigation, Anna is engaged with ecocentric social practice, critical pedagogy, alternative modes of instituting, institutional time, and participatory landscaping. She directs the MFA Curating and co-directs the Centre for Art Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Anna was a co-founder and director, between 2013 and 2021, of Open School East, London then Margate. She worked as associate curator at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2014-20), associate director at Bétonsalon – Centre for art and research, Paris (2011-12), and curator at Gasworks, London (2007-10). With Camille Richert, she curated Chaleur humaine, the 2nd edition of the Art and Industry Triennale (2023-24) at Frac Grand Large et LAAC in Dunkerque. Anna holds a PhD in cultural geography and is currently training in arboriculture.
Cindy Sissokho (b. France) is a curator, cultural producer, art consultant, and writer with a focus on anticolonial, social and political practices within the arts, and culture. Her curatorial work is nurtured by the urgency to broaden and disseminate knowledge and artistic production from systemically racialised and marginalised perspectives. She currently works as a Curator at the Wellcome Collection in London. She was the co-Curator of the French Pavilion by artist Julien Creuzet, with Céline Kopp for the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2024. She previously worked as a Curator at the New Art Exchange and in the Exhibitions & Public Programmes team at Nottingham Contemporary.
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