ARAC METHODS

Why are we?
ARAC’s stance (and by extension that of Another Roadmap School) is that international policies on art education lack substantial, nuanced research on art education practices and epistemology in the varying socio-political contexts represented across Africa. We recognise that there exists insufficient critical engagement with the history and persistent hegemony of western concepts of art and education within the continent.

Where we work from

Our respective countries, environments, and disciplines, inform what we end up contributing to the collective. This is to say we are inspired and motivated by our societies and their politics, the spaces we occupy; the architecture and natural topography thereof, things both tangible and intangible and of course the conversations we participate in, listen to and even overhear. Over the years, we have paid attention to our communion styles, stress relief and self–care rituals, how we eat and having fun. Our meetings therefore serve as melting pots for birth and rebirth. New processes and symbolic expressions emerge, culminating in practical approaches that reflect our various backgrounds.

Our design framework

method	what is it	context
Exhibition kit	An open-ended method of art making and learning through creating company composed of: Works developed through ARAC’s collective methods Works emerging from ARAC Members’s own practices Objects that keep ARAC’s artistic company	Imagine all the basic things you would need to set up an exhibition in your own context, and outline all the materials and steps involved.
Un/Chrono/Logical Timeline	The timeline aims to place Histories of Arts Education, including the routing of personal narratives, firstly, from an African context and then abroad. The Johannesburg Working Group (JWG) came up with this concept as a way of coping with their struggle with the term History.	People grab a piece of paper and share a significant historical moment in art or history as well as their own personal lives. The stories are spread out in non-linear order on a plastic vinyl or floor and then afterwards participants are invited to engage in the storytelling and then share their impressions.
Travelling suitcase	This is a concept inspired by the Medu Art Ensemble. The collective consisted of a group of cultural workers who would create posters as part of the protest art movement during apartheid, this was until their operation was brought to a violent end by the South African Defence Force in Gaborone Botswana, in 1985.	It is a portable box (50 cm x 75cm x15cm) with a silkscreen press that could print A2 posters, ink, squeegee, and stencil material. It consists of mono print materials which can be used and adapted in any context.
Radio-play/archive activations	Through the radio plays we imagine scenarios where we are privileged to hold conversations with our intellectual ancestors and ask them questions, hypothetical or philosophical.	Enact a scenario inside a radio booth whereby an interview is underway with different people assigned roles to represent the characters in the play.
Letter writing	One of the most important material symbols of solidarity is a letter. The Medu Art Ensemble newsletters carried letters. The two forms cited in the next column provide us with an entry into the significance of the letter over time. The letter as a means of communication is also a tool to mobilise.	The letters follow the ubiquitous standard form; ‘Letter to the editor’ such as ‘Letter from South Africa’ (Vol. 5 No.: 2) to ‘Poems from Vietnam’ (Vol. 3 No.: 3).
Postcard method	Born in Lubumbashi, through this method working groups leave each other messages that serve as either clues or highlights from activities that occurred during absences.	Messages take the form of statements, questions, phrases or tips through which members both maintain connections, and feed into the knowledge economy being cultivated.
Language workshops	Emma (Kampala WG) put it best when she said; Indigenous African languages are regularly marginalised in law, in government, in journalism and in the education system within the very regions in which they originate. They are too rarely taken seriously by those with power as tools for serious discussion and debate. The erasure and dilution of native languages in Africa is propagated by the fact that people simply do not recognise their value due to being conditioned to assume that colonial languages are superior.	Lagos WG new interpretations of old writing systems. Maseru WG word invention, and studies in orthography. Joburg and Maseru WG collaboration the investigation of creolisation/pidginisation with Tsotsitaal. Kinshasa WG Neologisms that have emerged within contemporary arts practice in the DRCongo.
People who think together dance together	Upon resting on the realisation that we are not meant to just meet and have presentations of research, feedback sessions and sessions to plan how to take our works back to our communities and constituencies. We made it a tradition to also dance together as a radical and emancipatory approach to culture, education and knowledge in post-independence Africa	Letting loose, having fun and stress relief
Ecole du soir	Inspired by Ousmane Sembene’s Night School. It is a pedagogical experimentation animated through a deliberate screening of films that resonate with our practices as well as the questions we ask. We recognise that film is a powerful educational tool which can yield massive social transformation and information dissemination in a manner that also brings people together to engage in conversation. It puts the agency back into the community by showing them that they also have the capacity to tell their own stories.	Film screenings followed by critical discussions
The kitchen is a dance floor	Virtually all the ARAC members enjoy the kitchen, it has therefore become a core part of our practice to exchange tastes and recipes from our various walks of life. As we cook, we discuss the different ways in which we nourish our bodies, approach cooking as a therapeutic practice and how we practice care.	Food preparation, cooking, dishing and washing dishes together with music playing all the while.
Walking, harvesting and publishing	We walk as a means to help us process what we have just learned, heard, had communicated to us, or been observed. The communication between bodies in motion and the mental bones at work play a big role in helping us harvest and process pieces of information until we reach a point of understanding and internalisation.	Walking and talking in relatively decongested space to make room for people to hear one another as they speak and walk

More information related to the list above can be read in the PDF below publshied by Bauhaus Dessau

Massive thanks to Gudskul, fellow contributors and Bauhaus Dessau
Text by Lineo Segoete (Maseru WG)