Learning Disruption From the Badass World of Parasites

• In Event: Constructing Educational Possibilities: Teaching Difference Through Repetition

Abstract

Within our educational systems, birthed from modernity/coloniality (Machado de Oliveira, 2021), it can be difficult to subvert the oppressive mechanisms that insist that education is a transactional commodity, providing “a menu of valuable and easily digestible information and experiences for learner’s consumption…..” (Machado de Oliveira, 2021, p. 43). Machado de Oliveira refers to this as mastery education and contrasts it with depth education, “a mode of engagement designed to prompt us to dig deeper and to relate wider…and become open to being taught by the world in unexpected ways” (p. 43). Depth education centers complexities and paradoxes. Art and Art Education are sites that endeavor to subvert aspects of modernity/coloniality, in favor of something deeper, yet, like everything, also exist within the ontological reality of modernity. How can we practice disruption of the oppressive mechanisms endemic to education, within our day to day reality?

A disruptor is: “ a person or thing that prevents something, especially a system, process or event, from continuing as usual or as expected” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). Parasites could be considered the ultimate disruptors. They infiltrate and interfere with biological systems and processes in both discrete and extreme ways. What then can we learn about disruption from parasites? This presentation explores possibilities of disruption within art/research/teaching. Drawing from the biological world of parasites both as a theoretical framework and a mode through which to play and experiment with art/research/teaching endeavors, this presentation is an initial exploration of notions of “disruption”, inspired by, and understood through, the stories of parasites, and further informed by Michel Serres theorizing of the parasite as a provoker of disequilibrium and difference (Serres, 2007). Some preliminary research results and implications are drawn from an experimental collaborative workshop wherein 5 colleagues in art education, discussed/explored/considered and/or applied ideas about parasites to our art practice.

Author

• Renee Jackson, Temple University