Building on the fruitful experience of the 2018 Manifesta12 5x5x5, scholars, students, legal theorists, community activists, filmmakers, artists and other practitioners are gathering in Palermo to discuss and lay the grounds for creating a permanent space – an Institute of Unlearning – for long-term intellectual and political collaborations.
Taking seriously the steps taken by the City of Palermo to open and transform itself politically and culturally, such a space cultivates the intersections in our visions to create pedagogical spaces in Palermo for knowledge production that relate to the Middle East and African societies and that are de-colonial from their inception.
This vision will be tested through a ‘Week of Unlearning’ from June 03-11, 2019 based in Teatro Garibaldi in the Kalsa neighborhood of the city of Palermo. In these days, the participants based in the city, the Mediterranean, and abroad, will each take on one day of activities in the form of workshops, collective walks, lectures, and praxis around the theme of unlearning.
Together we will mobilize Palermo’s historic repositioning to interrogate the idea of a linear and West-centric development of knowledge.
Culminating in the vision of an Institute of Unlearning on Tuesday June 11 in the Cantieri Culturali di Zisa, the events of this week aim to create possibilities for learning and the building of cross-continental networks that try to deterritorialize and decolonize our constructed and militarized regional identities.