Das LearnPeaks Symposium lädt vergangene, gegenwärtige und zukünftige Teilnehmende des Learnscapes Programms für zwei Tage zu Workshops, Vorträgen und Zusammenkünften ein – eine Gelegenheit, tiefer in die schwimmenden Landschaften der Wissensproduktion und Praktiken des Un-, Ko- und Wieder-Lernens jenseits des akademischen Bereichs einzutauchen.

Eingeladen sind alle Studierenden und Lehrenden, die an Workshops, Vorlesungen, Seminaren, Designstudios etc. an der Floating University teilgenommen oder diese organisiert haben und das Learnscapes-Netzwerk mitgestalten, sowie alle Interessierten.

Das Symposium bringt Menschen zusammen, um Gedanken und Praktiken des (Un-, Ko-, Wieder-) Lernens an der Floating University auszutauschen. Studierende und Lehrende werden sich gegenseitig und der Öffentlichkeit Workshops anbieten, eine Gelegenheit, in ihre Lernerfahrungen einzutauchen. Weitere Gäste sind eingeladen, Vorträge über ihre unkonventionellen Lernpraktiken an der Schwelle zwischen künstlerischer und urbaner Praxis zu halten – ein Versuch, die Floating University in einem breiteren Diskurs zu kontextualisieren.

Das Symposium wird auch als ein Akt des Zusammenkommens und ein Grund zum Feiern verstanden, bei dem diskutiert und debattiert wird, Reden gehalten werden und formelle und informelle Dialoge geführt werden. Studierende und Lehrende sind herzlich eingeladen, beim Discursive Dinner über ihre Erfahrungen vor Ort zu reflektieren. Der kollektive Prozess der Essenszubereitung wird von Denkanstößen und Diskussionen begleitet, mit dem Ziel, kollektives Wissen zu generieren, das in die eigene Lernpraxis und das eigene Umfeld zurückgebracht werden kann.

Programm

Registration for workshops (public – max 50 people) and dinner (learnscapes network) at learnscapes@floating-berlin.org

WORKSHOPS
22. September

DISCURSIVE DINNER
(23. September)

The Discursive Dinner is an invitation to all past, present and future learners at Floating University – students and teachers alike. Together, we will cook and discuss, prepare the meals and set the table, hold speeches and dine.

At four cooking stations, participants are invited to prepare a meal, while reflecting on their experiences at Floating, searching for common ground and discussing different aspects of experimental learning practices and spaces. Four questions, which evolved in co-creative meetings with interested participants earlier this summer, will serve as a starting point for discussion. The outcome of each discussion will be graphically recorded, so that the generated collective knowledge can be brought back to one’s own learning practice and environment.

The discursive food preparation will be followed by dining together and sharing food for thought. Before each course, the groups are invited to present their meal and outcomes.

16:00 Introduction
16:30 Discursive food preparation
18:30 Spotlight: How to turn learning into playing?
Toast
18:40 Spotlight: How to self-organise non-hierarchically?
18:50 Appetiser
19:20 Spotlight: What institutional change do we need?
19:30 Main course
20:30 Spotlight: How can we foster a learning community practice?
20:40 Dessert
21:00 Closing

Discursive stations:

#1 How to turn learning into playing?
(table setting)
The first group gathered around the question “How to turn learning into playing?” and transformed the setting of the discursive dinner into a learning playground. Setting the table turned into a playful learning exercise – the participants got to know some tricks through practice and approached the content of the discussion not by theorising it, but through practical experimentation, combining great fun with new skills.

#2 How to self-organise non-hierarchically?
(appetiser)
The appetiser group talked about flat and non-hierarchies while cooking, cutting and making group decisions, preparing several salads and pita bread. The group did not vote on a leader who decides how to prepare the appetisers, but rather listened to Paula’s (the cooking expert) advice, which made the process of food preparation very natural, non-hierarchical and democratic. The cooks agreed that their goal is not to produce the perfect outcome but to form the way of working together. The group developed a system of taking decisions by formulating a question that needs to be answered – e.g. how big to cut the salad leaves – and leaving another person to decide. The act of cooking questioned pre-existing structures, responsibilities and hierarchies that are normally being performed and reproduced.

#3 Learning from Floating – what institutional change do we need?
(main course)
The starting point of the discussion around the main course was the physical experience of the Floating learnscapes that helps the cognitive process. The cognitive mapping of the site, linked to physical experiences, discovers new, more diverse points of view. The circumstances – being exposed to weather conditions, but also being in a new setting, in a different environment from the well known institutional spaces – welcome students to create their own learnscapes, to appropriate, design and shape their new learning spaces, to follow desires e.g. to go out instead of sitting inside in summer. How can this spirit be brought back to the institutions? Architecture needs to change towards more flexibility and temporality. Space is the third pedagog after the teacher and the students. Both the physical and institutional architecture of universities create expectations that students need to succeed and some may feel trapped by that. There is thus need for more flexible and temporal spaces that support alternative learning practices.

#4 How can we foster a learning community practice?
(dessert)
Starting point of the discussion was the understanding of practice as the opposite of a project. Teachers and student groups isolate themselves in the comfort of their project work, defined by a semester. What could enable a practice that allows to go beyond the project boundaries? A practice needs continuity and a community. The group looked at Floating and their experiences on site. The way courses and design studios are run can be understood as project making, whereas Floating itself is an ongoing place. A community of practice is understood not as the process of generating disciplinary knowledge (e.g. how to design a building), but as an embodied position and a network of people. The group defined three steps towards a community of practice – (1) a collective space that is open in which to assemble; (2) cross-pollination (creating moments of exchange for different learning groups); (3) deliberately exchanging moments of practice. The group further developed two proposals: cross-courses designed to deliberately intersect and a yearly assembly (of the learnscapes network). A good reference was PAF – Performing Art Forum – a completely self-organised forum based on four rules : 1. Make it possible for all. 2. Don’t leave traces. 3. The doer decides. 4. Assume asymmetries. With this in mind, new motivations and intentions for next year were expressed, how to turn the Learnscapes network into a community of practice. Stay tuned..