Josh Cook
Liminal Pedagogy
The aim of this project is to create a space where students and faculty are encouraged to take part in the act of authorship and publishing — in a way not often accounted for within the monitored, white walls of the institution — where things can be produced without seeking validation, satisfying a brief, or providing justification for their existence.
It is here that unforeseen opportunities for teaching and learning can take place. The message of this liminal space is that publishing thoughts and formal experiments can create unknown publics, that designing for oneself can be a powerful act, that all voices and designed works are valid and should be put on display, and that a more authentic sense of communication can come into focus when it exists in a space that relinquishes control.
The space created by the shelves is the project with all of the content found upon the shelves serving as one way in which the space can take shape. The items found on the shelves are not meant to be permanent to the installation and should not be treated as precious. As such, I encourage anyone to take what they need from the space and replace it with a course, reading, or any other sort of self-motivated project.
COURSES
These publications stem from interviews with and content provided by various design educators. The discussions were varied, but orbited around ways in which design practice informs pedagogy as well as ways in which the design classroom can become more liberating to students. Through publications like these, students or prospective students are given the opportunity to take courses in which they are not enrolled or do not exist, something that may be even more beneficial if extended beyond the walls of the university as a way of providing the autodidact access to materials of design education. It is my hope that in disseminating course content that these shelves can become a secondary space where anyone within the school, especially students, can learn from or create their own courses.
READINGS
This content serves as a representation of my own research, but also shows the important role that reading plays or should play in design education. I have found reading to be something that is capable of driving self-initiated work and believe it should be a cornerstone of any design course. Through these publications I am also attempting to make connections not only between myself and the text through notes in margins, but also between myself and a potential reader. This leads me to wonder if there are ways in which this could be brought into the classroom. Are there ways to make classroom readings into living things that change as they pass through the hands of different students over the lifetime of a course? Could these texts mediate discussion within the current student body as well as those of the past and future?
PRINT EPHEMERA
The printed pieces found in this section are included to show the types of self-motivated work that may populate this space. Some of these are outcomes from course work others, were created in response to research into design education, and others are just musings on design. It is likely that this print ephemera is representative of the type of work that will most likely be featured one these shelves moving forward as the student body begins to engage with the space. Ideally those who interact with this space should not feel pressured to put work here that is seen as valid or complete. In that sense, this space may operate as a sort of Salon des Indépendants.
