In most educational and professional training frameworks, we are asked to precisely identify and formulate the skills the programs aim to develop. We acknowledge the need for technical skills, but also, above all, advocate for the need to focus on ideological and politized foundations that are closely linked to skills of critical observation and reflection. We must pay more attention to the aim of social transformation in the cultural sector and become more attentive to questions of marginalized/underrepresented knowledge.
Within SHAKIN, we designed an International Project Exercise for our students from different universities and countries. The aim of the exercise was to create international groups of students, working together from October to March, to develop an artistic/cultural project, but moreover to learn from each other, open up to different forms of knowledge, and experiment with research and production methods. Each group was supported by two mentors.
Here is a list of different guides to implement a cooperation project with students or with partners, being especially attentive to its social relevance, methods of collecting data and subaltern voices, and reflexivity.
The expected outcomes for participants of the projects should be :
- To be aware of others / develop cooperative skills
- To experiment with alternative methodologies
- To develop action research and critical analysis
- To learn a non-hierarchical model of managing cultural projects and spaces
- To produce and promote subaltern knowledges
- To advocate for subaltern knowledge in cultural policy-making
- To focus on their own intercultural way of working (by expliciting their professional and civic ethos)
These guidelines start from designing the instructions of the project format itself to the evaluation of the project by participants.
