On transpedagogy: Recent experiments at the intersection of art and pedagogy

Transpedagogy is a contemporary transdisciplinary practice that combines aspects of socially engaged art with elements of radical educational practices. The results of this practice are often temporary alternative learning centres facilitated by artists, curators, or collectives. These projects frequently involve collaboration or cooperation with a pre-existing community or one drawn together by the transpedagogical project itself. I understand transpedagogy as a potentially intersectional feminist practice in its departure from educational norms that contribute to oppressive circumstances. Transpedagogical projects regularly rely on modes of sharing and developing knowledge that reject the key features of neoliberalised education. Instead of prioritising heavily managed, vocational, and profitable training regimes, transpedagogies tend to embrace modes of knowledge production that are without explicit usefulness or marketability. This often includes socially engaged and cooperative modes of learning designed to explore ideas with critical, community-building, or ambiguous purposes. In my thesis, I argue that transpedagogical projects inhabit an interesting liminal space that is both art and education. This is a space that can facilitate affective social encounters with knowledge, often to urge critical engagement with social issues. I analyse three examples of transpedagogical works that have recently taken place in Australia in this thesis: Song-Ming Ang’s Guilty Pleasures (2007-), Keg de Souza’s Redfern: School of Displacement (2016), and Kelly Doley’s The Learning Centre: Two Feminists (2012)