Unlearning Routines of the Impossible

What are the struggles, entanglements, and joys of practicing unlearning in predominantly western contexts? Unlearning Routines of the Impossible responds to this question through revisiting the artistic research projects Sites for Unlearning, (co-)initiated by Annette Krauss. The sites are experimental gatherings where the aim is to collaboratively unlearn dominant forms of thinking and doing, and the affective production of impossibilities within institutions to intervene in social injustices. The artistic projects are accompanied, framed, and challenged by invited essays, collective conversations, and scenes on what unlearning might do and be. Together they form a support structure—a scaffolding for living—for practicing unlearning.

Includes contributions and materials from the Feminist Search Tools working group, Nancy Jouwe, Annette Krauss, KUNCI Collective & Study Forum, Ferdiansyah Thajib, and, and Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide.

As a successor to Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning (2018), the new book expands on its themes and research, critically reexamining the normative structures of educational, institutional, and everyday practices to challenge and dismantle the taken-for-granted truths that shape them. Unlearning Exercises is therefore republished—in a newly designed edition by Rosen Eveleigh—coinciding with the launch.

Annette Krauss works as an artist, writer, and educator. In her research-based practice she addresses the intersection of art, politics and everyday life with a focus on institutional responsibilities, and questions of privilege. Her work revolves around informal knowledge and normalization processes that shape our bodies, the way we relate, and engage in social practices, and how these influence the way we know and act in the world. These projects reflect and build upon the potential of collaborative practices while aiming at disrupting taken for granted truths in imagining and living forms of collectivity. She worked as course leader of the Master Fine Art at the University of the Arts Utrecht, and since 2023 is co-heading the department Art and Communication Practices, University of Applied Arts Vienna.