Alternative educational spaces: from utopia to institutionalisation.

During this meeting, Anna Colin will discuss her research related to the book Alternative Educational Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalisation (Nice: Villa Aron and Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2025). She will explore the factors that enable the establishment of so-called "multi-audience" educational structures, their life cycles, and the possible gap between the practices and values that bring them into being. She will also examine the thorny situations that lie in wait for resolutely alternative projects: the process of habituation, the temptation or necessity to expand, fundraising that undermines work ethics, longevity, or the simple desire to achieve viability and stability. 

The meeting will be moderated by Madeleine Planeix-Crocker and Fabrice Bourlez as part of the Troubles, Alliances and Aesthetics Chair.

Curator, educator and gardener, Anna Colin is committed to critical pedagogy, ecocentric social practice, ecology-inspired organisational models, institutional time and social botany. Between 2013 and 2021, Anna co-founded and directed Open School East, an independent art school and community space in London and then Margate. At the same time and previously, she was associate curator at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2014-20), associate director of Bétonsalon, Paris (2011-12) and curator at Gasworks, London (2007-10). As an independent curator, Anna has organised exhibitions at CA2M, Móstoles/Madrid; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Talbot Rice Gallery, Inverleith House and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; La Synagogue de Delme, Delme; and The Women's Library, London. With Camille Richert, she co-curated Chaleur humaine (2023-24), the second edition of the Art and Industry Triennial at Frac Grand Large and LAAC in Dunkirk. She directs the Master's programme in Curating and co-directs the Centre for Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, London. Anna is the author of Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs : de l’utopie à l’institutionnalisation (Villa Arson and Sternberg Press, 2025).

Crédits photos : © Claire Baily