Creativity Exercises
Spaces of Emancipatory Pedagogies

Referring to the examples from the visual arts and architecture, the exhibition “Creativity Exercises” demonstrates how open and participatory forms of learning such as different techniques of montage, movement exercises, utopian architectural models, non-verbal communication games, or collective actions can fuel the imagination and contribute to the formation of experimental and democratic communities.

The title of the exhibition was borrowed from Miklós Erdély and Dóra Maurer’s art course held in Budapest between 1975 and 1977. Tracing similar examples of self-organized transdisciplinary study circles of the 1970s and earlier pedagogical experiments connected with the artistic milieus of the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and the Situationist International, the exhibition discusses the pedagogical potential of art and contributes to contemporary debates on the educational turn in the visual arts, and the industrialization of creativity.

Discussing alternative practices of art education in the context of critical and emancipatory pedagogy, the exhibition defines creativity as a form of agency that is brought to life when the web of relations and roles surrounding the individual is dislodged. It is not a quality, nor an ability to be developed, but an interpersonal agency that enables critical, community-based learning. This does not mean the passive intake of information units, but the (inter)active shaping of personalities and interpersonal relations, the empowerment of groups and individuals, so that they can be critical and responsible social actors.