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Presentation Type
Recorded Presentation Video
Event Website
https://naturelab.risd.edu/events/recap-the-regeneration-a-virtual-series/
Start Date
20-5-2021 12:00 PM
End Date
20-5-2021 1:15 PM
Description
May 20 hosted the eighth and final conversation in the Regeneration series with Melita Morales, an artist, educator, and researcher focused on implementing transdisciplinarity and decolonial practices in learning environments. Take a look at this document with resources that were mentioned during the conversation to further your learning.
During her presentation, Melita revisited the topics of the previous Regeneration sessions, weaving their themes together through an exploration of “regenerative knowledge in learning and education.” Her talk became an inspiring example of transdisciplinary thinking in and of itself: Melita connected ideas from scholars, scientists, artists and researchers from a diverse range of identities and fields of study to showcase the possibilities of a pluriversal world.
Melita explained how the four epistemicides of the 16th century— the takeover of territory from Muslims and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, the colonial take over of America, the development of the transatlantic slave trade, and the burning of Indo-European women— resulted in a narrowing of knowledge and “expertise” that favors a single perspective in the westernized university. This mass destruction of knowledge and ways of being engendered the discipline-focused, hierarchical western education systems we have today, where science and objectivity is valued and art and subjectivity is not.
Naturally, disciplinarity does not exist for us as children— science exists intertwined with art and is experienced in everyday life. But in today’s dominating learning environments, “students have minimal opportunities to connect what they learn to their real worlds and communities.” Melita explained that the division of disciplines does not serve us. It limits our capacity to learn and prevents us from building regenerative knowledge. We need to shift how we value various fields of study and ways of knowing and critique the organizational hierarchy and structure of learning.
Melita concluded by asking a series of questions: “What worlds, what ways of being, are written through our work that can exceed the bounds of what is valued in a western knowledge system? What sort of relationships to each other and the more than human world does this art/science/innovation set into play? How can we restore the false binary of art-science through the projects we undertake?” Melita encouraged us to imagine a world beyond disciplinarily by sparking unique collaborations and exploring polylithic knowledge in our own creative practices. She said, “When we speak about knowledge, we speak about worlds.”
Regeneration with Melita Morales
May 20 hosted the eighth and final conversation in the Regeneration series with Melita Morales, an artist, educator, and researcher focused on implementing transdisciplinarity and decolonial practices in learning environments. Take a look at this document with resources that were mentioned during the conversation to further your learning.
During her presentation, Melita revisited the topics of the previous Regeneration sessions, weaving their themes together through an exploration of “regenerative knowledge in learning and education.” Her talk became an inspiring example of transdisciplinary thinking in and of itself: Melita connected ideas from scholars, scientists, artists and researchers from a diverse range of identities and fields of study to showcase the possibilities of a pluriversal world.
Melita explained how the four epistemicides of the 16th century— the takeover of territory from Muslims and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, the colonial take over of America, the development of the transatlantic slave trade, and the burning of Indo-European women— resulted in a narrowing of knowledge and “expertise” that favors a single perspective in the westernized university. This mass destruction of knowledge and ways of being engendered the discipline-focused, hierarchical western education systems we have today, where science and objectivity is valued and art and subjectivity is not.
Naturally, disciplinarity does not exist for us as children— science exists intertwined with art and is experienced in everyday life. But in today’s dominating learning environments, “students have minimal opportunities to connect what they learn to their real worlds and communities.” Melita explained that the division of disciplines does not serve us. It limits our capacity to learn and prevents us from building regenerative knowledge. We need to shift how we value various fields of study and ways of knowing and critique the organizational hierarchy and structure of learning.
Melita concluded by asking a series of questions: “What worlds, what ways of being, are written through our work that can exceed the bounds of what is valued in a western knowledge system? What sort of relationships to each other and the more than human world does this art/science/innovation set into play? How can we restore the false binary of art-science through the projects we undertake?” Melita encouraged us to imagine a world beyond disciplinarily by sparking unique collaborations and exploring polylithic knowledge in our own creative practices. She said, “When we speak about knowledge, we speak about worlds.”
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/naturelab_regeneration/conversations/videos/7