Picture this – You are working on a grey rectangular room with grey rectangular windows. The walls are largely bare except for the occasional signage depicting the ‘rules and expectations’ on your workspace. Rows of desks aligned towards your ‘leader’ frame this entirely corporal and disciplinary affair. A bell rings every 45 minutes informing you that it is time to move on to the next task. Where are you? A prison? A factory? A classroom!

The ‘Changing Classroom’ is a series of living installations, which seek to uncouple the classroom as a physical encapsulation of neoliberal instrumentalist learning through engagement with pedagogically disruptive practices. CC(1.5) aims to reverse the disruptive process and gage participants’ responses to, first, being situated in a space of play and, secondly, being taken out of that space and put back into their familiar neoliberal framework of schooling.

The installation lasts for 4 hours and requires willing and eager participants!

This event is part of Topics in Critical Thought, a short course designed to offer an introduction to critical thought in general and provide a series of engaging talks, discussions and activities related to topics of contemporary concern to critical theorists. Members of the Centre for Critical Thought at the University of Kent will deliver all of the sessions. All seminars, except this last one, will be two hours long – 6.30-8.30pm – and will take place on Thursday.

More information about the full programme can be found here.