Alien Skills (collaborative drawing, Rhubaba Committee)
Rhubaba first approached me in June 2017 with the question of whether I would be interested in working with them on some research in relation to funding received from A-N. The project was to be called Learnin’ Broke My ?(emoji/not word) and my role was to be one of documenter/recorder of activity and would draw upon my experience as an art educator, a collaborator and as a (sometimes) artist. Over the course of six months I attended a number of Rhubaba activities that had been organised to ‘address and question the history and practice of self-organised educational organisations and experimental pedagogy’. I observed and recorded activities and the following is a culmination of this process. The works are intended to not only act as a documentation of this process, but also to begin to draw together some relevant resources and to capture/explore the activity of ongoing self-organised educational practices.
From the initial premise for the research a number of questions arose. Some of these questions we realised were pertinent to Rhubaba and others, we assumed and realised, were relevant to other artist led groups.
Research references can be found throughout, and at the end of, documentation.
Rhubaba Committee meeting, October 2017
- How do we organise ourselves?
- How do others organise themselves?
- How do we cooperate?
- How do we keep warm?
- What do we do with the rubbish?
- How do we ensure that everyone takes care of the environment?
- How do we manage to work full time and be an active committee member?
- How do we manage disagreement?
- How do we have disagreement?
- How do we learn?
- How do we (should we) share our learning?
- How do we work together?
- How do we continue to manage on a budget that is ever-reducing?
- How do we meet?
- When do we meet?
- How do we manage our meetings?
- How do we take care of ourselves?
- How do we look after each other?
- How do we reach agreement? (see disagreement)
- How do we do less?
Rhubaba Office (with fridge – HELP YOURSELF! and Edinburgh Art Festival sign)
