#3 Reflections on Discipline, Power and Design within South African Education Spaces ft. Olivia Bevan

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In our third episode, we welcome our very first guest, Olivia Bevan, to discuss how the concepts of design, space, and power can help us to rethink the South African education system. With the phased reopening of schools in South Africa following the Covid-19 lockdown, Oliva provides some valuable insights, as an art teacher, on the role of discipline and design as a barrier for learning. By contrasting a series of visual and conceptual examples such as the Panopticon and the Rorke's Drift school in South Africa, we were able to reflect and brainstorm together on the ways in which power can be used more productively to promote curious and compassionate learning. We covered a whole spectrum of fun examples to help us "air out" this conversation, so if you would like to hear more about how the philosopher Michel Foucault wants to eroticise knowledge, how Cas Holman's "design for play" can prevent "closed ideas" or how printmaking can serve as a powerful symbol for process work, hit play and imagine with us!

More details about our guest:

Olivia Bevan is a Cape Town based artist, currently working as a teacher. She asks this of the teaching trade: Where do you even begin to envisage an education that is not enclosed by barriers? How can creative learning be accessible and what could this look like? And speculates that printmaking can possibly afford some insight as to how to change our systems to allow for more flexibility:

“Printmaking allows for a removal from the artist and their mark in varying degrees and with this removal from direct mark making, endless discoveries can be made. Printmaking or methods of transference enable a process-based learning that is creative and adaptable to individuals. This type of creative skill and process learning creates space that leads to creative thinking."

Find out more about Olivia and her work by following: https://instagram.com/oliviabevanart?igshid=mygk9bjblxry

and https://instagram.com/create_space_art_sessions?igshid=cw4xq7xma39t

DISCLAIMER: WE ARE RECORDING DURING LOCKDOWN. PLEASE EXCUSE ANY HOME NOISES OR TECHNICAL GLITCHES.

For this episode’s list of resources and extra notes, visit our website: www.nbcollective.space/air-it

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Post production and editing by Jana Vosloo and Nicolene Burger. Music by Thabo Krouwkam.