Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs – De l'utopie à l'institutionnalisation

Based on empirical research, Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs – De l’utopie à l’institutionnalisation investigates how alternative educational spaces are created, developed, and transformed. Anna Colin, co-founder of the independent art school and community space Open School East, launched in London in 2013, was its director between 2013 and 2021. In this book, she explores the factors enabling the establishment of structures, their life cycles, as well as the possible gap between the practices and values ​​that make them exist. The investigation analyzes the characteristics and prerequisites of what Colin calls “multi-public educational establishments.” It also examines the thorny situations that threaten resolutely alternative projects: processes of habituation, the temptation or need to expand, fundraising that undermines work ethic, longevity, or the simple desire to achieve viability and stability. Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs aims to reconceptualize the notions of waiting, slowness, and longevity, and attempts to define what might benefit cultural practices and the creation of future institutions (or the redesign of existing ones). Rather than considering an equivalence between success and sustainability, the author explores institutional models that resist chrononormativity, drawing their inspiration from social movements, psychotherapy, biology, and permaculture.