This was handled very openly by the organizers of Lab 4 and responsibility was given to the workshop leaders. Here are some comments of workshop leaders regarding Culture of Pedagogy:

Bhagwati: I am a practicing university teacher without studies in pedagogy, so I do probably do not have the proper terms for this, but I always favor teaching by encouraging a creative and attentive engagement with other actors (humans, animals, plants, atmospheres etc.) that share the same environment. 

Blume: As I’m used to give workshops and lectures, I always try to focus on the act of listening, which is for me the most important part: listening to the sounds around us, listening to the other (the ones which is different), listening to existing sound pieces or to any other sounds. During this workshop, I’ve tried to follow this general idea, which I think can be useful for field-recorder, musician or performer. During the workshop it’s always complicated to have feedback from the people, especially in a short time, and being connected remotely… but I hope that listening has been appreciated by the participants. 

Sakina: In preparing the presentation, I concentrated entirely on presenting my own practical conclusions. I tried to show practically the methods of preserving a larynx movement, the tone in which the Dengbejs sing, by putting their hands to their ears and trying to create a resonance. I witnessed the participants watching with interest.

Kislal: Since my topic was “the time of unlearning”, my goal was not to “teach” something but to make the attendees reflect on perspectives of making art today. Establishing a safe space in which to discuss a very sensitive topic was the first step for that. Giving a voice in the room to the new generation (students, young artists), who are more involved with such questions, brought them all into an equal status. [JI1] So it was possible to get rid of the hierarchy of the professor and the student. 

Maria Do Mar: A pedagogy that is critical of racism and is enriched with postcolonial perspectives. Points of reference for my work are, on the one hand, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's ideas on a supplementary pedagogy, which are, among other things, about rethinking one's own imperial ways of life. On the other hand, I follow critical pedagogy as represented by people like Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. 

Erdödi: My pedagogical style and teaching method is dialogic and fosters collaborative learning processes, to which the workshop participants can contribute with their own methodologies, experiences and interests. The exercises I proposed were experiments devised them especially for the workshop. I had experience with the LITTLE BOOK OF LEARNING (see above) as a participant of Sarah Vanhee’s workshop on BODIES OF KNOWLEDGE, which however convinced me that it is a relevant and interesting tool to re-visit and use on this occasion. My teaching experience is sporadic (I am not a regular lecturer at art universities, but rather a regularly invited guest to a diverse mix of conferences, workshops, summer schools), therefore I don’t have a toolkit that I rely on when I hold workshops; rather I develop exercises and situations specifically for each occasion. 

My observation during the workshop was that both exercises would have needed a bit more time for participants to engage with them in depth and also that it would have been beneficial to hold a longer feedback/discussion round after each, in which we could have talked about the questions and observations that arose from both situations. I always find it challenging to manage time during such workshops, and to be considerate of the energy and attention span of the participants. As my workshop was on the last day of the laboratory, I observed that the participants were already relatively tired, and in this situation what I had prepared exceeded their capacities as well the time limits of the workshop. Otherwise my expectations were met, because from the feedback I received I understood that both exercises were interesting for the participants. Perhaps my initial impulse was too wide-ranging (as I presented several works from my curatorial practice) and could have been focused rather on an in-depth analysis of only one or two projects; however I also wanted to reflect on how my experiences of collaboration have shaped my practice.