Perimeter's curated Reading Capsules aim to explore some of the store's key points of interest and enquiry. Each capsule, focusing on various themes, mediums and contexts in art and design publishing, features titles available for individual purchase or as a specially priced bundle.
This capsule looks to Art Pedagogies, specifically some significant approaches to education and knowledge-sharing in the art world. The capsule includes thorough documentations of schools whose progressive methods solidified their historical reputation (The Bauhaus Dessau School of Design, Black Mountain College, California Institute of the Arts), as well as texts that consider contemporary discussions surrounding education in art and design.
Each of these titles are available for individual purchase through the web store, or as a specially priced bundle ($399 with free domestic shipping).
Design Rehearsals: Conversations about Bauhaus Lessons
The student projects from the preliminary course at the Bauhaus Dessau School of Design are a unique document of the learning process. They are evidence of the independent and multifarious approaches applied to the work of “translating” the particular assignments set by the Bauhaus teachers. They not only counter the idea of the preliminary course that has now become canonised in historical accounts of the Bauhaus but also offer insights, in their variety and open-endedness, into the dual process of acquiring knowledge and making new discoveries. The book picks up on the tradition of the public guest critic and translates this into the present-day context. (Spector Books – Leipzig)
Tacit Knowledge **NOW SOLD OUT AND OUT OF PRINT. A relevant replacement will be made – feel free to contact us for more info.
Tacit Knowledge provides the insight into the complex artistic and educational practices that are the first decade of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). There is a special focus on the conceptual and feminist strategies developed in John Baldessari's post studio class as well as Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro's Feminist Art Program, which was initiated in 1970 and brought to the newly founded art school in 1971. As Post Studio and feminist practices at CalArts are often characterised by the specific entanglement of cognitive and bodily forms of knowledge, the idea of tacit knowledge, and thus learning through social and performative contexts of action, functions as an overarching principle in the book. (Spector Books – Leipzig)
One of the most powerful things about art is the multiplicity of knowledge to which it can lead us. The major exhibition and book Shapes of Knowledge – the most extensive survey of its kind in Australia – broaches notions of research, teaching and the laboratory in relation to art practice, referencing contemporary art’s ‘educational turn’ as a point of departure. Responding to its surroundings within Australia’s largest tertiary institution, Shapes of Knowledge surveys eight important socio-pedagogic, knowledge-making art projects from Australia, Asia, Europe and Africa, alongside a series of newly commissioned and historical texts that challenge the conventions of knowledge and reveal how art can be transformed by learning. (Perimeter Editions x MUMA – Melbourne)
Black Mountain: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933-1957 (Second Edition)
The interdisciplinary and experimental educational ideas espoused by Black Mountain College (BMC), founded in North Carolina in 1933, made it one of the most innovative schools in the first half of the twentieth century. Visual arts, economics, physics, dance, architecture, and music were all taught here on an equal footing, and teachers and students lived together in a democratically organised community. The first rector of the school was John Andrew Rice, and Josef Albers, John Cage, Walter Gropius, and Buckminster Fuller were among the many adepts to give courses here. In consequence, BMC witnessed the development of a range of avant-garde concepts. This richly illustrated book traces the key moments in the history of this legendary school. (Spector Books – Leipzig)
Design Dedication: Adaptive Mentalities in Design Education
This book makes a plea for adaptive mentalities within design pedagogy through a non-normative approach to design practices. It investigates an attitude in and towards design education that is socially engaged, politically aware, generous in approach, lyrical in tone, experimental in form, and collaborative in practice. Additionally, it explores the kinds of work being developed and how an institute can be responsible in supporting an securing these modes of practice. The book is geared towards design students and educators worldwide, and includes a selection of works developed in the context of the Design Department of the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. (Valiz – Amsterdam)
The Trade Of The Teacher: Visual Thinking With Mieke Bal
This book documents a series of conversations on the art of teaching between cultural theorist Mieke Bal and Jeroen Lutters. In a dialogue that also touches on the role of visual art, Lutters introduced paintings by Banksy, Rembrandt, Marlene Dumas, and George Deem as “teaching objects” and asked Bal to elucidate upon each. The result is a personal, meandering, and precise account of her way of thinking through visual art and literature, as well as how she exchanges ideas with students and colleagues. The text makes clear how objects can speak, how they are thought-images, and serves as a source of inspiration for both students and teachers of the arts and humanities. (Valiz – Amsterdam)
Extra-curricular is a reader of texts on and around the topic of self-organised learning, curriculum, experiments, and alternatives in graphic design education. Occurring both within and separate from existing institutions, these other forms of learning and organisation question how such learning takes place, for whom, and the ideologies inherent in existing models, among many other things. An (admittedly) incomplete inventory inspired by the widespread activity and educational turn (or shift) in the field, this book aims to serve as a point of departure for further discussion and experimentation. (Onomatopee – Eindhoven)