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Launch of the Collection ‘Scratching the surface’ (‘La surface démange’)

Following the creation of an online platform dedicated to critical approaches to artistic pedagogy, Villa Arson is pleased to announce the launch of the collection ‘Scratching the surface’ (‘La surface démange’) with the publication of two works: Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization by Anna Colin and Feminism and Pedagogy at the Heart of Artistic Training: 40 Years of Experience by Griselda Pollock. These two works are also published in English in partnership with Sternberg Press – The MIT Press.

Initiated by Céline Chazalviel and Sophie Orlando, the “The surface itches” collection is directed by Alice Dusapin (head of publications) and Sophie Orlando (scientific director) and designed by In the shade of a tree.

Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization – Anna Colin

Based on empirical research, Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization investigates how alternative pedagogical spaces are created, developed, and transformed.

Co-founder of the independent art school and community space Open School East, initiated in London in 2013, Anna Colin was its director from 2013 to 2021. In this work, she explores the factors enabling the establishment of structures, their life cycles, as well as the possible discrepancy between the practices and values that bring them into existence. The investigation analyzes the characteristics and prerequisites for what Colin calls ‘multi-public educational establishments’. It also examines the thorny situations that await resolutely alternative projects: habituation processes, temptation or necessity to expand, fundraising that undermines work ethics, longevity, or the simple desire to achieve viability and stability.

Alternative Pedagogical Spaces proposes to reconceptualize the notions of expectation, slowness, and longevity and attempts to define what could benefit cultural practices and the creation of future institutions (or the redesign of existing ones). Rather than considering an equivalence between success and sustainability, the author explores institutional models that resist chrononormativity, drawing from social movements, psychotherapy, biology, and permaculture.

Afterword: interview with Catherine Queloz
Design: in the shade of a tree

French edition published by Villa Arson
10.5 x 15.5 cm (paperback) / 132 pages / €12

English edition published by Villa Arson and Sternberg Press
10.5 x 15.5 cm (paperback) / 116 pages / €12
Available on the Villa Arson editions online store and the Les Presses du réel website

Feminism and Pedagogy at the Heart of Artistic Training: 40 Years of Experience – Griselda Pollock

Feminism and Pedagogy at the Heart of Artistic Training: 40 Years of Experience brings together two lectures given in 1985 and 2022 by Griselda Pollock.

In her 1985 lecture, Griselda Pollock formulates a critique of gender politics present in artistic education in the 20th century which, according to her, reinforce the individualist and masculinist ideology of capitalist conditions of art production. She associates the cult of the author with a lack of recognition of women artists, despite their flagrant participation in modern art. She explores the impact of post-modern criticism and commitment to feminist art on theories of meaning, subjectivity, and image, when it detaches from the ‘studio’ model. Finally, she advocates for ‘a feminist intervention in art history’ capable of challenging the model exclusively centered on the male artist-hero or on the hegemony of formalism in art theory.

Nearly forty years later, in 2022, Griselda Pollock revisits the impact of 1968 and the theoretical revolution provoked by this historical moment, resituating the geopolitical and ideological turns of 1989, 2001, and particularly 2007 (release of the iPhone, linked to the Internet and social networks). She identifies a problematic post-2010 trend that she calls (borrowing from Derrida) ‘instagrammatology’ and defends a critical analysis of the grammar of social networks, which according to her reduce the spectrum of nuanced thinking and perform surveillance of ideas.

Afterword: Sophie Orlando
Design: in the shade of a tree

French edition published by Villa Arson
10.5 x 15.5 cm (paperback) / 138 pages / 12 €

English edition published by Villa Arson and Sternberg Press
10.5 x 15.5 cm (paperback) / 120 pages / 12 €
Available on the Villa Arson online bookstore and the Presses du réel website

la surface démange

An online platform

la surface démange is a line of research on critical approaches to artistic education, directed by Sophie Orlando.

From 2020 to 2024, it took the form of a working group on emancipatory pedagogies in art at the national school of art, Villa Arson, bringing together Christelle Alin, Flo*Souad Benaddi, Céline Chazalviel, Gil Lekh and Hani Yikyung.

In March 2024, Villa Arson launches the online platform la surface démange. This platform hosts contributions on emancipatory pedagogical forms from various environments including higher education in art and design, art centers and artistic activist circles in the form of interviews, 4th year dissertations, commissioned texts or collective courses.

A print collection

In January 2025, Villa Arson launches with Sternberg Press – The MIT Press, a print collection “The surface itches” by publishing two books: Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization by Anna Colin, and Feminism and Pedagogy at the Heart of Artistic Training: 40 Years of Experience by Griselda Pollock.

This collection offers reflective narratives from educators in art schools, university departments of creative writing and visual arts, art centers and museums – institutions often considered progressive.

It highlights the possibilities for transformation and the constraints encountered by emancipatory artistic pedagogies in the field of visual arts, performance, literature, art history, academic research and art criticism, all developed in contexts imbued with coloniality. Drawn from a poem by Audre Lorde, the title evokes our desire to question the norms, biases, and unthought aspects of pedagogical forms, but also to testify to what they evoke in us.

Initiated by Céline Chazalviel and Sophie Orlando, the “The surface itches” collection is directed by Alice Dusapin (head of publications) and Sophie Orlando (scientific director) and designed by In the shade of a tree.