INSTANT CLASS KIT . THE PEDAGOGICAL IMPULSE . thepedagogicalimpulse.com INSTANT CLASS KIT Curated by VESNA KRSTICH :: Commissioned & Directed by STEPHANIE SPRINGGAY :: Publication Design by SHANNON GERARD INSTANT CLASS KIT is a Fourteen contemporary artists have CONTRIBUTORS: she continues her archival investi- portable curriculum guide and pop-up contributed to Instant Class Kit. The Anthea Black, BFAMFAPhD gation into the histories of Fluxus exhibition dedicated to socially- contemporary artists strive to deliver (Caroline Woolard and Susan and Happenings, and curriculum engaged art as pedagogy. Produced a curriculum based on the values of Jahoda), Elana Mann, Helen reform. Krstich has received research as an edition of four, the kit brings critical democratic pedagogy, anti- Reed and Hannah Jickling, Jen grants from the Canada Council for together contemporary curriculum racist and anti-colonial logics, and Delos Reyes, Josh MacPhee, the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and materials in the form of artist social justice, as well as continuing the Mare Liberum, PA System (Alexa the Toronto Arts Council. She has multiples such as zines, scores, experimental and inventive collabora- Hatanaka and Patrick Thompson), published in C Magazine, Art Papers, games, newspapers and other tion that defined Fluxus. The lessons, People’s Kitchen Collective (Sita Parachute, Canadian Art, and Curator: sensory objects from a diverse group syllabi and classroom activities Bhaumik, Jocelyn Jackson, Saqib The Museum Journal, among others. of artist-educators across North produced by this new generation of Keval), Rodrigo Hernandez- Her recent publication, "Multiple America. Instant Class Kit is closely artists address topics and method- Gomez, Shannon Gerard (with Elementary, Multiple Leftovers, modelled on the multi-sensory and ologies including queer subjectivi- students: Maddie Bellino, Leah Multiple Learning" appears in a critical open-ended strategies of Fluxkits, ties and Indigenous epistemologies, Benetti, Geryl Cabrera, Rocio anthology of texts edited by Helen as well as hands-on learning kits social movements and collective Cardoso, Angelica Granados Lopez, Reed and Hannah Jickling, and jointly commonly used in K-12 education. protest, immigration, technology, Riel Hattori-Caspi, Megan Moore, published by YYZBOOKS (Toronto) Combining these influences, Instant and ecology. Alongside the rise of Cleo Peterson, Celina Sieh, Francis and Black Dog (UK) in 2017. Class Kit offers an interactive and digital culture and online platforms Tomkins, Rebecca Vaughan, Regina speculative approach to teaching for communicating and working, Xiao, Dana Zamzul and artist- STEPHANIE SPRINGGAY that is participatory, collabora- multiples, printed editions and other researcher Andrea Vela Alarcon), is an Associate Professor in the tive, and social justice oriented. types of instructional ephemera Syrus Marcus Ware, and Tania Department of Curriculum, Teaching, continue to be important strategies Willard. and Learning at the University of Instant Class Kit was conceived in for contemporary artists engaged Toronto. She is a leading scholar in response to art historical research in social practice and pedagogy. VESNA KRSTICH is an art critic, research-creation methodologies undertaken as part of The Pedgogical curator, and art historian who teaches with a focus on walking, affect, new Impulse, a research-creation project The artistic works in the kit await Visual Arts and Theory of Knowledge materialisms and posthumanisms, exploring contemporary art as activation. Instant Class Kit is at Upper Canada College in Toronto. queer theory, and contemporary pedagogy in schools. This research intended for K-12 and university-lev- Her research explores the interrela- art and pedagogy. Her most recent examined the experimental collabora- el art students and teachers, as well tionship between performance-based research-creation projects are tive practices of Fluxus, Happenings, as curators, activists, community practices and experimental pedagogy documented at www.thepedagogica- and other artist-teachers employed organizers, and others interested from the 1960s onwards. She holds limpulse.com, www.walkinglab.org at art institutions across Canada and in socially-engaged art practices an MA in Art Education from and www.artistsoupkitchen.com. She the US during the 1960s. Against the and pedagogy. Opening the kit for Concordia University and an MA in has published widely in academic backdrop of curriculum reforms, and the first time becomes a learning the History of Art from the Courtauld journals and is the co-author of the social and political change, these art- challenge unto itself, as participants Institute of Art, where she specialized book Walking Methodologies in a ist-teachers produced and distributed decide how to interpret, activate and in Contemporary Art. In 2013, she More- than-Human World: Walkinglab printed matter and other multiples respond to the instructional works, developed a curatorial residency (Routledge); co-editor of M/othering (such as posters, booklets and games) each dependent on time, space, and entitled Back to School at Gallery TPW a Bodied Curriculum: Emplacement, as documents of radical pedagogy. In context. In the tradition of mail in Toronto, which sought to examine Desire, Affect (University of Toronto recent years, there has been renewed art, the kit will travel to different performance instructions or ‘scores’ Press), co- editor of Curriculum interest in collecting, reprinting, and activators who will document and as curriculum material through a and the Cultural Body (Peter Lang); reactivating these obscure projects, share their experiences and findings program of workshops, screenings, and author of Body Knowledge and and in reappraising the merits of on The Pedagogical Impulse website and artist talks. As a collaborator Curriculum: Pedagogies of Touch in Fluxus-based pedagogy for education. as a series of online exhibitions. on The Pedagogical Impulse project, Youth and Visual Culture (Peter Lang). INSTANT CLASS KIT . THE PEDAGOGICAL IMPULSE . thepedagogicalimpulse.com FROM FROEBEL TO FLUXUS: A Multisensory Guide to the Instant Class Kit Vesna Krstich AT FIRST, the name Instant performance instructions, posters, Watts, George Brecht, Geoffrey Class Kit feels like a misnomer. a curriculum plan in the form Hendricks, Allison Knowles, The title carries associations of a board game, essays, and and George Maciunas, as well as with the visual culture of 1960s response excerpts from students other loosely affiliated members, advertising and its promises of and guest artists – all contained such as Allan Kaprow – were immediate gratification, as well as within a cardboard storage box. at the forefront of curriculum the appropriation of these tropes reform in many postsecondary by Pop Art. Yet it also implies The project was funded by the institutions across the United States a degree of humour and irony. Carnegie Corporation and led and Canada during the 1960s. Does learning, or teaching, for by artist and educator Robert that matter, really happen in an Watts, art historian Sidney Simon, Maciunas’s Mock-up for Proposals instant? Can you create an “instant and anthropologist Edmund for Art Education is a unique class” as easily as you can make Carter, with the aim of delivering Fluxus document as it functions 1. As cited by Sidney a cup of instant soup? Maybe. a research-driven experiment both as a curriculum resource Simon in “1:The Course,” in “participatory education.”1 and artistic endeavour. What George Maciunas, Mock- up for Proposals for Art Instant Class Kit borrows its ludic Unfortunately, the complex if the mock-up had circulated? Education (1970), Special title from an obscure archival nature of this publication made it How would the complex and Collections & Archives, source: a white legal-size envelope challenging for the publisher to mysterious assemblage of items University of California, Santa Cruz. labeled “INSTANT CLASS KIT– reproduce and as a result, it never been handled and activated by with readymade responses,” circulated widely in its intended participants? The current Instant designed by artist George format. Instead, a simplified, Class Kit we have assembled is Maciunas. The envelope contains bound edition was published as guided by a desire to reimagine black-and-white headshots of Proposals for Art Education, From how inventive works of curriculum students and instructors who a Year Long Study Supported could fulfill their original purpose took part in a curriculum-re- by the Carnegie Corporation by bringing them back into the form project at the University of of New York 1968-1969. This hands of learners themselves. California, Santa Cruz during publication was sent to various the 1968-69 academic year. The artists, educators, and theorists note on the front of the envelope, for consultation and use. presumably to the printer, contains instructions for the students’ eyes Maciunas and Watts both belonged to be die cut out of the headshots, to Fluxus – an international transforming each image into a network of poets, artists and mask. This unconventional class composers who worked across portrait forms part of a mock-up different media, and who sought for an elaborate three-dimen- to integrate art into everyday life. sional publication designed by Fluxus artists produced concerts Maciunas called Mock-up for and performances, as well as Proposals for Art Education (1970). instructional works, ready-made The mock-up