Après la création d’une plateforme en ligne dédiée aux approches critiques de la pédagogie artistique, la Villa Arson est heureuse d’annoncer le lancement de la collection « La surface démange » avec la publication de deux ouvrages: Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs : de l’utopie à l’institutionnalisation d’Anna Colin et Féminisme et pédagogie au cœur des formations artistiques : 40 ans d’expérience de Griselda Pollock. Ces deux ouvrages sont également publiés en version anglaise en partenariat avec Sternberg Press – The MIT Press.
Initiated by Céline Chazalviel and Sophie Orlando, the “La surface démange” collection is directed by Alice Dusapin (publishing director) and Sophie Orlando (scientific director) and designed by In the shade of a tree.
Alternative educational spaces: from utopia to institutionalization – Anna Colin
Based on empirical research, Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs: de l’utopie à l’institutionnalisation investigates how alternative pedagogical spaces are created, developed and transformed.
Co-founder of the independent art school and community space Open School East, initiated in London in 2013, Anna Colin was its director between 2013 and 2021. In this book, she explores the factors that enable structures to be established, their life cycles, and the possible mismatch between the practices and values that bring them into existence. The survey analyzes the characteristics and prerequisites of what Colin calls “multi-public educational establishments”. It also looks at the thorny situations that threaten resolutely alternative projects: the habituation process, the temptation or necessity to expand, fund-raising that undermines the work ethic, longevity, or the simple desire to achieve viability and stability.
Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs sets out to reconceptualize notions of waiting, slowness and longevity, and attempts to define what might benefit cultural practices and the creation of future institutions (or the redesign of existing ones). Rather than equating success with longevity, the author explores institutional models that resist chrononormativity, drawing on social movements, psychotherapy, biology and permaculture.
Afterword: interview with Catherine Queloz
Graphic design: in the shade of a tree
French edition published by Villa Arson
10.5 x 15.5 cm (paperback) / 132 pages / €12
Édition anglaise publiée par la Villa Arson et Sternberg Press
10,5 x 15,5 cm (broché) / 116 pages / 12 €
Disponible sur la boutique en ligne des éditions de la Villa Arson et le site des Presses du réel
Feminism and pedagogy at the heart of artistic training: 40 years of experience – Griselda Pollock
Feminism and pedagogy at the heart of art education: 40 years of experience brings together two conferences held in 1985 and 2022 by Griselda Pollock.
In her 1985 lecture, Griselda Pollock formulates a critique of the gender politics present in twentieth-century art education, which, she argues, reinforce the individualistic, masculinist ideology of art’s capitalist conditions of production. She associates the cult of the author with a lack of recognition of women artists, despite their flagrant participation in modern art. She explores the impact of post-modern criticism and the commitment to feminist art on theories of meaning, subjectivity and the image, as she breaks away from the “studio” model. Finally, she argues for “a feminist intervention in art history” that can challenge the model centered exclusively on the male artist-hero or the hegemony of formalism in art theory.
Nearly forty years later, in 2022, Griselda Pollock revisits the impact of 1968 and the theoretical revolution provoked by this historic moment, resituating the geopolitical and ideological turning points of 1989, 2001, and more particularly 2007 (release of the iPhone, linked to the Internet and social networks). She identifies a problematic post-2010 trend that she calls (via Derrida) “instagrammatology”, and defends a critical analysis of the grammar of social networks, which in her view reduce the spectrum of nuanced thought and perforate the surveillance of ideas.
Afterword: Sophie Orlando
Graphics: in the shade of a tree
French edition published by Villa Arson
10.5 x 15.5 cm (paperback) / 138 pages / €12
Édition anglaise publiée par la Villa Arson et Sternberg Press
10,5 x 15,5 cm (broché) / 120 pages / 12 €
Disponible sur la boutique en ligne des éditions de la Villa Arson et le site des Presses du réel
itchy surface
An online platform
La surface démange is a line of research into critical approaches to art education, directed by Sophie Orlando.
From 2020 to 2024, it took the form of a working group on emancipatory pedagogies in art at the national art college, Villa Arson, bringing together Christelle Alin, Flo*Souad Benaddi, Céline Chazalviel, Gil Lekh and Hani Yikyung.
En mars 2024, la Villa Arson lance la plateforme en ligne La surface démange. Cette plateforme accueille des contributions sur les formes pédagogiques émancipatrices issues de différents milieux dont l’enseignement supérieur d’art et de design, les centre d’art et les milieux militants artistiques sous la forme d’entretiens, de mémoires de 4e année, de textes de commandes ou encore de cours collectifs.
A paper collection
In January 2025, the Villa Arson, in conjunction with Sternberg Press – The MIT Press, launched a paper collection entitled “La surface démange” (The surface itches), with the publication of two books: Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs: de l’utopie à l’institutionnalisation (Alternative educational spaces: from utopia to institutionalization ) by Anna Colin, and Féminisme et pédagogie au cœur des formations artistiques: 40 ans d’expérience (Feminism and pedagogy at the heart of art training: 40 years of experience ) by Griselda Pollock.
This collection features reflective narratives from pedagogues in art schools, university departments of creative writing and visual arts, art centers and museums – institutions often considered progressive.
It highlights the transformative possibilities and constraints encountered by emancipatory art pedagogies in visual art, performance, literature, art history, academic research and art criticism, all developed in contexts steeped in coloniality. Taken from a poem by Audre Lorde, the title evokes our desire to question the norms, biases and unthinking of pedagogical forms, but also to bear witness to what they arouse in us.
Initiated by Céline Chazalviel and Sophie Orlando, the “La surface démange” collection is directed by Alice Dusapin (publishing director) and Sophie Orlando (scientific director) and designed by In the shade of a tree.