Keynote Address
Space Without a Map
REBECCA KRINKE, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
A “space without a map” refers to an unprecedented situation – and given that we are living in time of individual and collective trauma brought on by inter-related racial, social, ecological, political, and spiritual crisis – it’s clear that the world is deeply out of balance. Or as Greta Thunberg says: “OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE!”
As teachers (and ideally life-long students), what are our responsibilities in these times without a map? What capacities to we need to build in ourselves and offer to our students? My talk will share my hybrid art-design practice alongside recent personal insights and questions, alongside those of my students. My fall semester studio course “Making Space for Emotion” foregrounded the emotional, the intuitive, and “un-learning”. Questioning fundamental assumptions about the educations we have received and their emphasis on the “rational” and the “measurable” was key to the experience. This keynote talk will be a kind of experiment in both telling a story and inviting your conversation: How has your state been altered in the last year? How is this affecting your scholarship and teaching?
