The inaugural FORMER WEST Research Congress, held in Utrecht in 2009, and the 2nd FORMER WEST Research Congress, On Art and Political Imagination, held in Istanbul in 2010, are arguably the most visible, even spectacular, manifestations of FORMER WEST research in progress, because they span several days, mobilize a significant number international speakers, and garner the attention of a large audience, both on-site and on-line. Therefore, these meetings may appear on the surface to be the most discursively enterprising, authoritative, and conclusive moments in the process of thinking through the idea of a FORMER WEST, and as such, have been critiqued both publicly and in private for their chosen focus or scope, their normative format, for their inclusiveness. The FORMER WEST team takes those critiques and suggestions for adjustments to its approach very seriously and thinks constantly about issues of accountability in developing its methods and communicating its research, which is collective in nature. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the congresses are only one element in a constellation of events, publications, educational activities and exhibitions, the current record of which you will find here.
One of the most discreet and important aspects of FORMER WEST research is materialized in the teaching and learning that takes place in formal and informal educational settings, not only within the educational activities organized by FORMER WEST and its partners, but in the ways in which the research is shared throughout networks all over the world. At the 2nd FORMER WEST Research Congress, On Art and Political Imagination, artist and activist Robert Sember, from the collective Ultra-red, referred to his own teaching as an “extraordinary place for mobilization, for organizing, and for praxis,” and entreated FORMER WEST to reconsider its forms and formats of reflection, via a “reorganization of the spaces” in which our discussions have been taking place. At this moment, state education and culture funding are in severe crisis, the Bologna process of educational reform and the “educational turn” in artistic and curatorial practices are still in the forefront of discussions in certain sectors of the artworld, and the notion of an ‘alternative’ educational practice, outside of academies and institutions, is being hotly debated. It is worth noting that a great many of us working in and around, and thinking through, the implications of FORMER WEST are also employed as educators, are advocates of education’s transformative potential, and are aware of the enormous economic, social, and political stakes of the current crisis. In the words of bell hooks, education “allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress.” This is perhaps one of the reasons that the question of knowledge production (and its economies) has run like Ariadne’s red thread through the maze of seminars, interviews, lectures, and congresses hosted by FORMER WEST and its partners, but also through the multitude of conversations that are taking place off the radar. You will find details about some of the formal teaching and learning taking place around FORMER WEST on the education platform of this site, including Claire Bishop’s syllabus for her graduate course titled Former West, taught at the City University of New York, and coursework by her students, and the blog created by students at Studium Generale Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, on the occasion of the day-long event “Becoming Former West.” We would love to hear how FORMER WEST figures into your own educational projects.