Sisters Academy

We currently work on the large-scale Nordic project Sisters Academy.

Sisters Academy is a large-scale Nordic project initiated and performed by our performance-group Sisters Hope (DK). Sisters Academy is equally rooted in performance art, research, pedagogy and activism.

Ingrained in the activist ambition of evoking the aesthetic dimension on the stages of everyday life and specifically within the educational system we take over the leadership of a series of upper secondary schools, to explore and unfold new modes of sensuous teaching and knowledge production. As headmistresses The Sisters places the aesthetic dimension here within its values and premises as the highest and they become the fundament from which the school is now governed. For two weeks the school is completely transformed through set-design light-design and sound-design. New staff members from various backgrounds perform as ‘new staff members’ at the school – ‘The Sisters staff’. They embody a framework of sensuous and poetic inspiration for the teachers at the school to think and feel radically different about their practice and for the students to experience radically different modes of teaching and learning.

The training of the teachers of the school is initiated up until a year prior to the manifested event and afterwards the dialogue and exchange is continued. Thus, the preparatory pre-liminal and the anchoring post-liminal phase of the project both play a crucial part as the project seeks to create actual impact and point towards the very real potential of the aesthetic dimension as a source of inspiration to innovate the educational system. Sisters Academy is not only emphasizing and amplifying the value of the creative subject fields on upper secondary school level, but even more radical these are fundamental to all other subject fields.

During 2014-2016 Sisters Academy will manifest in a series of Nordic countries – E.g. in Greenland, Iceland and Sweden

Sisters Academy #1:

The first manifestation of Sisters Academy took place in Denmark at HF & VUC, FLOW in Odense from 24.2 – 7.3. 2014 and involved 200 students and 20 teachers who were under the poetic leadership of the ‘unheimliche’ Sisters and their staff during the event – Sisters Academy #1. The photo material presented in this text mainly refers to this manifestation. In this case the end is firmly the beginning as the integration at the school begins our conversation continue and we shall investigate and talk with a voice of change long into the future.

More images from the process here.

Press here.

Sisters Academy #2:

The second manifestation of Sisters Academy took place in Greenland in close collaboration with Nuuk Art Museum as part of of PSi #21 – Fluid States – Fluid States North. We explored sensuous learning with visiting researchers and performers from all over the world and collaborated with Artuafiq – The Hans Lynge School (7th grade). And we explored how we can create closeness even though we are at a distance in the gigantic North Atlantic region.