Resistant Materials: Block C - Artists in Residence

Over the last two years artists Niki Kohandel, micheal. and Jasmin Bhanji undertook residencies at Arts and Media School Islington (AMSI) to explore the role of artists in schools and learning, and the ways in which we can meaningfully involve people who are not normally involved in shaping culture to do so. Each artist has been active in the rhythm of the school, researching and delivering projects that exposed their ideas to students as well as reflections within and across our communities.

Our residences are held at Block C in a disused technology classroom repurposed as four artist studios in AMSI. Initiated in 2018, resident artists have used the opportunity to hold a studio within a formal education context to explore questions around learning and education whilst contributing to the school ecology through commissioned projects. 

Block C investigates how we might pool and share our resources at a time when the arts and education sectors are under intense pressure to deliver more with less. It is a direct response to the sidelining of artistic and creative subjects in the curriculum – which led to the technology classroom falling out of use.

The exhibition will be opening on the 9th of July and on till the 19th of July and will include a public programme.

10-6pm from Wednesday to Friday and 12-5pm on Saturdays.

Exhibition Opening 9th July 3 - 8pm

Join us at Cubitt on the 9th of July from 3–8pm to open a multifaceted exhibition of the artists’ work, research and experiences at AMSI as well as a programme that seeks to answer the question, what is the role of artists in schools? Tickets below.

Reading Group 10th July 6:30 - 8pm

Join Civic Fellow: Anahí Saravia Herrera for a collective reading of excerpts from ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by Paulo Freire. In this session we will collectively read out loud together as a way of re-animating this seminal revolutionary text from the 70s, thinking through liberation in the context of schools and education. As part of the session, we’ll also experiment with the space, rearranging chairs in a kind of shared choreography responding to the text. This will be a relaxed and participatory session, open to everyone!

In Conversation 12th July 6:00 - 8:00pm

We are pleased to invite Joeanna Omotesho, Head of Art at AMSI, alongside our artists in residence, Niki, micheal. and Jasmine for a conversation where we will discuss what is the role of artists in schools and what alternative ways of thinking/ learning can an artist facilitate within a school? Join us in hearing from Joeanna and the artists about all things art curriculum and relationship building as well as a q&a.

Niki

Niki Kohandel is an artist, filmmaker and facilitator based in London. Her practice sits in the space between recording and rewriting a story. She works in collaboration with family members, friends and young people, playing with languages, analogue film, childhood memories and colours. 

Jasmin

Artist Jasmin Bhanji’s research in art education explores the relationship between practical and theoretical modes of inquiry through performance, enactment and embodied learning. She is curious about the absences and omitted stories in the archives of art history. Considering herself a direct product of colonial and post-colonial history, she acts as a magpie, accumulating and arranging layered imagery, images of artists, artefacts, and art materials to interrogate the concept of ‘the studio’ as crafted in the persistent images of Western art history.

micheal. 

michael. is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice weaves together visual and sonic experimentations to foster community building and imagine alternative futures. His work explores the relationship between landscape, power, and diasporic spaces.