Practices of ‘Unlearning’: Coloniality, Knowledge and Migration. Public Workshop and Intercontinental Reading Sessions

This cross-continental seven-day Summer School considers how the coloniality of power relates to regional discursive formulations of the ‘Mediterranean’, the ‘Middle East’ and ‘Africa’. Through collective reading sessions connected remotely from Mauritius, Doha, Syria and Palestine to Palermo, academics, artists and other practitioners interrogate the idea of a linear development of thought and consider practices in the south that try to deterritorialize these constructed and militarized regional identities.

Coordinated by Shourideh C. Molavi In collaboration with Jess Auerbach and Janice Ndegwa

Opening Hours:
Palermo, 12.00 – 15.00
Pamplemousses, Mauritius, 14.00 – 17.00

Special Event: 

Presentation and Public Announcement of The Institute of Unlearning in Palermo, Sicily

Wednesday, 21 November 2018, 12.00 -13:30

Galleria Regionale della Sicilia

The Triumph of Death Hall

Palazzo Abatellis, Via Alloro 4, Palermo

Speakers:

Dr. Shourideh Molavi, Department of Political Science, American University in Cairo and

Research Fellow at Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London

Dr. Iman Hamam, Department of Rhetoric and Composition, American University in Cairo

Dr. Roberto Albergoni, General Director of Manifesta 12

The presentation from the 5x5x5 educational programme, Practices of Unlearning: Coloniality, Knowledge, Migration invites the public to attend a talk at The Triumph of Death Hall

of Palazzo Abatellis, announcing the initiative, The Institute of Unlearning in Palermo. This initiative is a direct product of the Manifesta 12 Collateral Events, originating from the above one-week summer school, Practices of Unlearning, held in cooperation with the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies based in Qatar and the African Leadership University in Pamplemousses, Mauritius.

During this one week summer event, participants and students engaged in a transcontinental discussion around the subjects of deterritorialization and decolonisation of the Mediterranean basin. As a result of these fruitful discussions and exchanges, the participants decided to establish long-term ties to the city of Palermo and accepted the invitation of the mayor, Leoluca Orlando, Andrea Cusumano, the municipal cultural councilor and the director general of Manifesta, Roberto Albergoni, to create a permanent, physical space in which critical  students, scholars and practitioners can interrogate notions of issues such as colonialism, migration law, identity and borders within, around and across the area of the Mediterranean.

One of the many objectives of this institute will be to foster stronger ties and to enrich existing ties between the city of Palermo in Sicily and the cultural, intellectual and artistic production in the Middle East and North Africa, and the global south by extension.

In this short discussion, two of the members of the board of Unlearning will be present to announce the parameters of the institute and to get feedback from the participants and attendees. The Institute of Unlearning in Palermo will be launched in the summer of 2019 at its future home in the Cantieri Culturali di Zisa.

A special thanks to Evelina de Castro and the Regional Gallery of Sicily for their willingness to host this presentation, to the Cultural councilor Andrea Cusumano and the mayor Leoluca Orlando for having accepted the initiative of the Institute of Unlearning and for the Collateral Events of Manifesta 12 which presented the opportunity to engage with the the city of Palermo.