Anti-Academy (2013–2014), publication and exhibition at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK

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The subject of experimental art education programmes founded c1968 at the heart of Anti-Academy was sparked during my research for Live Art on Camera. This came through particularly in conversations with artist Hans Breder who situated the actions he photographed of and for Ana Mendieta as outcomes of art school location-based teaching whilst Mendieta was a student on the Intermedia programme at Iowa University. From the archive of the Intermedia Programme which Breder had set up at Iowa University, he shared his Super-8 footage of student works made on location, often collaboratively in Iowa and on student study visits to Mexico.

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Anti-Academy – as exhibition and book – is arranged around three case studies of experiments in art education: Bigakko in Tokyo, Ex-Skolen in Copenhagen, and Intermedia in Iowa. Within the exhibition, artist Yoshiko Shimada presented the Bigakko section as a classroom complete with experimental work benches and documents such as artist Nakanishi Natsuyuki’s very complex drawing experiments. Cornelia Schmidt-Bleek curated archival materials from Intermedia, Iowa using technologies of analogue slideshows, videos and large-scale photographic installations of archival materials. A video – made by Maude-Roxby in collaboration with editor Tom Chick – documented Ex-Skolen through archival materials and a filmed conversation between the founders, art historian Troels Anderson and artist Bjørn Nørgaard.

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With works by Nakamura Hiroshi, Akasegawa Genpei, Kikuhata Mokuma, Nakanishi Natsuyuki, Matsuzawa Yutaka, Ana Mendieta, Vito Acconci, Elaine Summers, Mary Beth Edelson, Poul Gernes, Ex-Skolen. Interviews and essays including Hans Breder, Richard Bloes, Herman Rapaport, Troels Anderson, Bjørn Nørgaard, Ulrikka S. Gernes, Jessica Santone, William Marotti, Alice Maude-Roxby, Yoshiko Shimada, Cornelia Schmidt-Bleek, Tania Ørum.