16 January, 23 January, 6 February, and 13 February 2025, all from 17:00–19:00 / Casco HQ
RSVP via info@casco.art

Beginning in early 2025, a reading group is organized in preparation for the launch of Unlearning Routines of the Impossible. Structured around four sessions, the group provides participants with an opportunity to collectively engage with the book’s core themes and guiding question: “What are the struggles, entanglements, and joys of practicing unlearning in predominantly Western contexts?” It also aims to draw connections with Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning (2025/2018), of which Unlearning Routines of the Impossible is the sister publication.

Unlearning Exercises presents a set of “unlearning exercises” as propositions to foster a culture of equality, difference, and fairness in art organizations. Co-developed by the Casco team and artist Annette Krauss, the project’s public reception culminated in a publication that encouraged an active and critical examination of the normative structures and practices within the art world. It sought to dismantle taken-for-granted “truths” and values, using Casco as a concrete site for research and transformation. The project emphasized unlearning—even when challenging—as an essential process for creating space for new ways of thinking and learning.

The reading sessions are structured around select chapters of the book. With the participants, we explore the book’s propositions while harvesting questions and reflections that build the foundation for the upcoming launches. You are welcome to join us on 16 and 23 January, and 6 and 13 February from 17:00–19:00.

Study processes like these have been central to Casco Art Institute’s ongoing experiments over the past year, providing a space to enact commoning knowledge within art institutions while deepening and making tangible the diverse artistic practices our ecosystem pursues.

The reading sessions are always free to attend. We offer a gentle environment for reading, inquiry, and dialogue. No prior experience is needed. Different modes of engagement are welcome. The sessions take place in person and are conducted in English. Please RSVP via info@casco.art and receive the reading materials. The details per session are listed below and are updated as the sessions progress.

Session #1: 16 January, 17:00–19:00 / Casco HQ

The first session explores the new book’s chapters In the Vortex of Institutional Lives by Ferdiansyah Thajib and Hidden Curriculum by Annette Krauss. These texts examine institutional collaboration, ethics in education, and the critique of implicit knowledge and values within learning economies, with a focus on unlearning and social reproduction. Accompanying these readings is the short scene Wall Patrols, in which fungal inspections reveal the strange effects of institutional walls harming its workers.

• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “In the Vortex of Institutional Lives” with Ferdiansyah Thajib
• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Hidden Curriculum”
• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Wall Patrols”

Session #2: 23 January, 17:00–19:00 / Casco HQ

In the second session we focus on the chapters Instead of Solving Paradoxes and Contradictions and Site for Unlearning (Zwarte Piet). As the publication’s core, these two chapters navigate the possibilities offered by artistic practices and activism to dismantle colonial power. The chapters do so by analyzing anti-blackface activism in the Netherlands and Belgium, drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s concept of “unlearning one’s privileges.” For both chapters, the concept of unlearning functions to evaluate oppressive norms critically to confront racial injustice. Additionally, we read the short chapter Bodies to Think With, a critique of the mind-body binary, on which the survival of colonial and institutional norms relies.

• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Instead of Solving Paradoxes and Contradictions”
• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Site for Unlearning (Zwarte Piet)”
• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Bodies to Think With”

Session #3: 6 February, 17:00–19:00 / Casco HQ

• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “On Unlearning Sedimented Practices: Stories Involving Everyday Whiteness and Quick Fixes” by Nancy Jouwe
• Unlearning Exercises: “Site for Unlearning in the Museum” by Nancy Jouwe

Session #4: 13 February, 17:00–19:00 / Casco HQ

• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Letters: The classroom is burning, let’s dream about a School of Improper Education” by KUNCI Study Forum & Collective
• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Afterword: Unlearning as a Scaffolding for Living”
• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible: “Tired in Archives”