HAK.io Workshop 4: Digital dispositions for learning with the land
What kind of curriculum/s do we need for our futures?
This culminating workshop with the Science Gallery Bengaluru Carbon Mediators was set in the workshop calendar to co-design a climate curriculum for the upcoming show, Carbon at SGB.
SWISP is doing this because climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health (IPCC). But, what curriculums do we need and who should design them? Our proposed intercultural climate curriculum seeks to respond to this urgent need through a strategic global project that will bring a cohort of intergenerational communities together in partnership with the Science Gallery Network to design curriculum for young people by young people. We think that an ‘Intercultural Climate Curriculum’ is a creative means for young people to engage in two-way knowledge exchange about complex relationships between ‘Justice/s, Future/s, Activism/s’ mediated by and through the Science Gallery exhibition, Carbon. And, we align with their mission to ‘bring science back into culture’ through:
- Empowering Young Adults with our Mentorship Initiative that encourages non-evaluative, self-motivated, hands-on learning. We provide exposure to research practices and nurture future research pioneers and active citizens.
- Shaping Culture with our Public Engagement and Community Initiatives that contribute to building a society with critical appreciation for the rigour of science, an ability to ask good questions, and participate in better informed public debates.
- Open Research at our Public Lab Complex (opening in 2024) that encourages open-ended experiments through collaborations for young adults and experts. We provide access to research tools and outcomes outside institutional walls to catalyse anti-disciplinary thinking and intergenerational co-inquiry.
But first we needed co-conspirators – or co-researchers in this a/r/tographic exploration – so that young people in Karnataka become the instigators and facilitators of HAK.io. And so we partnered with Science Gallery Bengaluru Carbon Mediators, who know the place and space, to design an authentic encounter for troubling complex ideas such as climate, land, and the digital. The resulting 2 week engagement project at SGB achieved the connections for caring and creative co-inquiries to occur.
After 3 HAK workshops (as blogged) the Mediators were ready to co-design the Carbon curriculum.
This is how it started:
Workshop intro: the brief for building a Carbon Curriculum in 3 teams.
| Target Audience: | 14–24-year-olds |
| Overview and Focus: | Climate …dash… Carbon Your curriculum could be an outreach program, in gallery experience, conceptual or practical workshop but should include 4 HAK.io methods |
| Key Understandings: | • The Anthropocene • Carbon and climate • Art, and ….., and, science, and…. |
| Essential Questions: | 1. How can we contribute to a new ecosystem of learning around issues of climate in/justice, digital in/justice, intergenerational in/justice and meaningful action? 2. What interdisciplinary practices that lie between complex disciplinary issues and concepts do we need to experience to future-cast for future generations? 3. What art and science communications do we need to mediate at the intersections of art and science? 4. What sites, cites and sights do we need to wonder and wander in to design learning for reparative futures amid climate collapse? |
To get started each curriculum writing team first explored the SWISP Padlet (see the image below) to locate what inputs (pink on the right) they needed to fulfil the brief to process through the hacking methods and create curriculum outputs.
This input/CPU/output or artist/researcher/teacher image (above) shows our living inquiry: a Padlet portfolio that carries and holds the heavy lifting of our work. To the left are the inputs, such as the Hacking the Anthropocene Kit (HAK) as well as the following:
•Artworks and performances eg, Anne Zahalka’s Wildlife in the age of Anthropocene (2018).
Out the other side of this processing workshop we have 3 carbon curriculum designs ready for SWISP to respond and finalise before sending back to SGB.
In this short video (3 minutes 24) Carbon Mediators Bhavitraa, Divya and Jagath discuss their carbon co-designs.
In a few months SWISP will return to SGB to work alongside the Mediators with school groups and young people in the new gallery through on site HAKs. This component continues with its community engagement and adds a research focussed element (with University of Melbourne ethics approval). It forms part of the Learning with the Land SSHRC global 3-year project led by Professor Rita Irwin at University of British Columbia and contributes to Sarah’s program of research as a Melbourne Postdoctoral Fellow – hence the project title, ‘Digital Dispositions for Learning with the Land’.