Tutorial Presentation

For our first tutorial in the Teaching and Learning unit we were asked to create a five minute presentation on ourselves, our teaching practice and to pick some texts from the reading list to engage with.

I – Who Is Zuleika Lebow?

I am an artist, poet and all round nerd. My practice is mainly centred around projects which involve social engagement and collaborative working as a method for exploring and exchanging ideas. When I’m not collaborating with others, my individual practice focuses on ideas of esoterica, race, the sick body (I have a chronic illness called Lupus) and lexicon and all the beautiful intersections these subjects embody.

I regularly go to comic con, love comic books, sci-fi and anime/manga and will happily discuss the virtues and pitfalls of GoT until I’m blue in the face.

In 2018 I joined a feminist group called The Convehersation Network and began producing The Convehersation Podcast, as well as organising monthly events and meetups. We now have 36 episodes live across streaming platforms so have a listen! I run two online communities: The Blackbird, a platform dedicated to showcasing the work of artists and disruptors from marginalized backgrounds and Chronic Creatives, a monthly meetup group for people who are chronically ill and working/studying in the creative industries.

II – Collaborations

As I mentioned above, the majority of my work involves working collaboratively with other artists to address/explore ideas around current social issues. I discovered this strand to my practice during my second year of studying at Middlesex University, myself and six other student artists banded together to form The Common. Over the course of our second and third years at university we ran interventions and workshops pertaining to student life (Letter To A System), had a film screened at the ICA (Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Art Schools So Different, So Appealing) and created our own board game as a comment on capitalism and gentrification (foodBANK).

At the moment, I am working with Collective Exchange, a North London based collective who are passionate about facilitating social change through artistic workshops with children and adults. Our most recent project is called Mind Your Language a series of workshops which encourages attendees to examine their ideas around gender and gender biased language. Inspired by the Suffragette’s use of badges to highlight their political cause and spark dialogue with others, the workshops centre around badge making and collage as a starting point for internal and external conversations around gendered phrases we use every day – encouraging folks to mind their language moving forward.

In November last year, I gave my first ever long-form lecture on the subject of Collaboration and Social Practice as part of Black British Visual Artists BBVA Talks series. I’m currently in the process of reviewing the longer version of the lecture, but a brief snippet can be found here.

Other collaborations include: WRITE IT SPEAK IT MOVE IT with Rita Munus at Cubitt Gallery, Guttural Living a residency at METAL Southend with artists Kerri Jefferis, Sophie Chapman, Kyla Harris and Serena Morgan and Bindan Sanctum with Husna Lohiya and Kerri Jefferis commissioned by the Three Faiths Forum.

III – Resonant Teaching Practices

Before starting the PGCert I had never taught in a formal educational setting before. I feel fortunate to be discovering my teaching practice while doing this course so that I can adapt as I go along. At the moment, more by necessity than by design, my practice is very intuitive, and I have been watching my colleagues on the course I currently teach on and implementing techniques they use into my own practice.

I’ve never found the whole “I talk, you listen” white/blackboard/powerpoint presentation methodology of teaching particularly useful or engaging, although I recognise that they serve a purpose – particularly if that purpose is to create a conveyor belt of “knowledge” without testing if there is understanding to go along with it. However, on the whole I find that as a methodology, particularly from a standpoint of inclusive learning, they fall short a lot of the time. Socratic methods of teaching, an ask and answer approach, engaging the students by asking them their opinions about the learning materials, inviting a spirit of play and active learning are much more interesting. There is inherent value in questioning everything, even that which is presupposed – especially when the invitation to critique and question facilitates a deeper understanding from students.

One text that I always come back to as a reference point for pedagogical practice is the book Letter to a Teacher, which inspired the Letter to a System workshop by The Common.

In 1967 the students of Barbiana wrote a letter to their former teachers. The letter started as a composite of collected thoughts, later developing into a powerful and direct demand for change to the classist education system that had failed them, To begin the text the students decided to each write down what they knew about the subject of education, they each kept a notebook in their pockets. Every time an idea came up, they made note of it. Each idea on a separate sheet, and on only one side of the page. They then brought these pages together and spread them on a big table. From here they looked through them, eliminating duplicates and every useless word. Next, they made piles of the sheets that were related. These then became the chapters, and from there were divided again into paragraphs So began the first draft of what was to become the book, Letter to a Teacher. A call to organise, a letter for change. Written against inequality and for everyone’s right to fair education and to a place within society. Since then, the text has become a symbol of radical intention, critical thought and the strength of collective actions. In the spirit of Barbiana and in the light of our precarious situation as art graduates, The Common aimed to mirror this activity. Providing a space to discuss and collect a diverse range of experiences, knowledge and opinions from artists and citizens now. Revealing the varied public opinions of a system that presupposes privilege and does not recognise the value of creative labour.

Despite being written in the 60’s I find that the book and the pedagogical ideologies within it hold so much relevance in our current social climate. It highlights to me that a lot of the time teaching is a performative practice which functions similarly to improvisation, asking “and then?” using the lived experience of both students and teachers to facilitate a dynamic in which learning can take place. In order for the performance to be any kind of successful, it requires engagement, participation and exchange in both energy and physicality.

IV- Radical Pedagogy

The three texts I read were: Critiquing the Crit (Blythman, Orr, Blair 2007), It’s all about “me” with you: Exploring autoethnographic methodology (Drabble 2018) & Towards Radical Pedagogy: Provisional Notes on Learning and Teaching in Art and Design (Danvers 2003)

What immediately jumped out to me about each of these texts is that democratising and integrating the classroom to be more inclusive is somehow “radical” to begin with. I am aware that any action or school of thought which attempts to depart from the status quo is by default radical, but it left me wondering how else do/did we expect people to learn? How did we actually imbibe any knowledge at all with the older models of teaching and learning? I have to conclude that in some ways I didn’t learn much or have spent the last 12 years unlearning what I have learned.

I found Towards Radical Pedagogy so useful. Essentially a glossary of terms used widely in art and design academia, Danvers articulated briefly and succinctly in academic language, which was still accessible, some intuitions and feelings I’d had about art school pedagogy from my own experience but which I did not feel I had adequate language to express.

V – Unlearning

I wholeheartedly plan to follow Yoda’s advice! Unlearning and reviewing the old models of teaching that I grew up with and reshaping them to fit my teaching practice as it currently stands. Davers asserts in his definition of transformative learning that, “Underpinning much art and design education is a belief in learning as fundamentally about ‘changing one’s mind’.” (Danvers 2003) I believe this is an essential component to the process of making way for the new.

VI – Stay Connected!

Feel free to follow my adventures via Instagram. For a more in-depth look at my work, visit my website. If you’re interested in attending a Chronic Creatives meetup, you are more than welcome to join. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Convehersation Podcast before you go!

Sources
Websites:
www.zuleikalebow.com
Full text of Letter to a Teacher – https://archive.org/stream/LetterToATeacher-English-SchoolOfBarbiana/letter_djvu.txt
The Convehersation Network – https://www.theconvehersation.com/

Texts:

Students of Barbania, 1970. Letter to a Teacher. New York: Random House Publishing.
Danvers, John, 2003. Towards a Radical Pedagogy: Provisional Notes on Learning and Teaching in Art & Design. NSEAD. pg 51
Blythman, M., Orr, S. and Blair, B. 2007. Critiquing the Crit. UAL research report.
Drabble, Neil. 2018 It’s all about “me” with you: Exploring autoethnographic methodology. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal.