A publication by artist and teacher-researcher Marie Preston on the alternative pedagogies developed in France during the 1970s-1990s in "open" schools working on the question of the relationship between co-creation and co-education.
The teaching teams at the heart of this book were convinced that, in order to break social reproduction, the school system was in dire need of transformation and they did it! The experiences discussed in this book constitute a truly fertile ground in terms of educational, relational and institutional inventions, and we have much to learn from them today. This is particularly true of cooperative and co-creative artistic practices which convey a true desire for and ways to implement social transformation, joint management, the emergence of collective creation and commons. The work is built up around a back and forth between interviews and accounts from the participants of this story and contextual and analytical elements opening on co-creative artistic practices. This book gathers an interview with Jean Foucambert, a discussion with Rolande and Raymond Millot (École Vitruve, Paris and La Villeneuve neighbourhood, Grenoble) and an unpublished text by André Virengue who was the headteacher of the Jacques-Prévert school in Villeneuve d'Ascq for over 20 years. A significant part of this work is dedicated to iconography, a crucial component of research as it enables the discovery of students' realisations as well as the publishing of school newspapers and other print works.
New edition of the book first published in 2021 (ISBN 979-10-96155-19-4).
Marie Preston (born 1980, lives and works in Paris) is an artist and a research educator. Her projects exist in-between art and ethnography and are based on the exchange of knowledge and skills between all participants. Several projects are united under the name "Co-creation" and include exhibitions, workshops and other initiatives. All these events are united by the idea of collective action, which creates an opportunity for meeting, exchange, and interaction. By documenting experience of communication with different people, Preston explores the possibilities of creating spaces for a dialogue. Photographs, sculptures, performances and videos become instruments for capturing situations that arise during these actions. Preston is currently working on the project "Common Bread", which consists of a series of meetings, workshops and collective baking sessions. Preston connects environmental issues with alternative approaches to teaching, based on the example of a network of experimental schools established in new cities in France in the 1970s and 80s. The main principles of these schools are self-government, cooperation and openness. With Céline Poulin, she co-edited the book Co-Creation (Éditions Empire & CAC Brétigny, 2019) in cooperation with Stéphanie Airaud.
Edited by Céline Poulin and Marie Preston.
Texts by François Deck, Jean Foucambert, Raymond Millot, Rolande Millot, Céline Poulin, Marie Preston, André Virengue.
