Natalia Amelia Saied
How do you know when you know? Tools for spectatorship and reflection
My graduation project questions how an ignorant host’s pedagogy can facilitate emancipated visitors in the contexts of museums and dance performances. Using movement improvisation principles and Jacques Rancière’s work, my research aims to push the boundaries of the traditional art encounter, which is usually regulated by art institutions. Rather than taking an explicatory and instructive approach, I invite to suspend judgment and guide the participants toward reflective inquiry.
I act as an ignorant, independent host in both contexts, creating a space for collective learning through a three-part workshop. The first part is a joint preparation that takes place in a public space or art institution before the art encounter and is based on movement improvisation practices to attune the senses to nuances. The second part is the art experience in itself, which takes place while sitting in the dark in front of a black box or standing in a white cube. I invite the participants to set their own conditions as spectators. And lastly, the third part is a reflection session, during which the multiple contents evoked by the arts, which are ineffable in their essence, gain form through art-based tools. This last part is an opportunity for participants to make the art experience valuable for themselves, by gaining a sense of self-knowledge through what I call the poetic labour of translation.
The universal teaching principle asks “What do you think?” By doing so, it heightens the norms and expectations imposed by institutions and the participants themselves, without attempting to dissolve or resolve the friction. Alternatively, the collective setting and the proffered tools enable participants to hear diverse perspectives, share creative strategies and embrace complexities.
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