Before diving into an update on the past week and a half of building and imagining at Red76’s Anywhere/Anyplace Academy, let’s back up a step and ask a basic question: what is A/AA?
Anywhere/Anyplace Academy is a class that builds its own school. Working from the belief that as a contemporary society we have a surplus of knowledge and ideas, A/AA is a construction project that invites anyone to contribute to a collectively built and imagined structure. As part of Surplus Seminar, it uses the excess materials as well as any under-used ideas we all have laying around.
At the Walker’s Open Field, A/AA is taking the form of several mobile “schools” made from surplus artwork shipping crates that would have otherwise been tossed away. Drawing upon the ideas provided by a precocious group of kids on the project’s first day, several academies are currently in production:
- The School Where Nobody Talks
- The Reading and Song School for Human and Dragon Peace and Reconciliation
- Scribble School
Since the building started on July 21, all kinds of people have helped build: kids on field trips, triple-generational families, day-laborers, art students, and Walker staff. They’ve brought a set of skills that range from sewing to engineering. In many ways, the A/AA enacts the idea of a commons that Open Field is built upon: a place where everyone can contribute, while a set of shared, facilitated values guides the creative action. That, and there are dragons.
Join the artists for one more week of building, Wednesday, August 4 through Saturday, August 7 from 10 am – 4 pm. Check back here for details on the project’s Sunday finale!
Look at more pictures here.
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