How to Make a School?

How to Make a School?

In 2021 we asked this question at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and today we are asking it at the Śluza Gallery in Poznań. And we do it intentionally. We believe that opening access to education for everyone is an important asset which we need to preserve, talk about and even enter into disputes over.

Each and everyone of us has been required to complete compulsory education. We have all kinds of memories and experiences from that time. Some good and some bad. We leave school with knowledge and skills, friendships and passions, but sometimes also with traumas and lost opportunities.

What should a school be like if we want it to respond to the challenges of contemporary world? What should it be like if we want it to unlock students’ potential and support their development?

It is commonly believed that to reform the education system is as hard as to send a man to the Moon. Why? Because schools are entangled in a system of interdependencies. This exhibition addresses some of them.

We are asking the title question at a moment when education is facing a major crisis, aggravated by global challenges. However, we realise that problems resulting from shortages of space, staff and money or caused by political tension have occurred countless times in the past and have been tackled in a number of ways. It is in the past that we look for the roots of some contemporary phenomena. As always, we focus mainly on our closest surrounding – Poznań and the Wielkopolska Region. We try to analyse the present-day situation from different angles.

Thinking about the challenges facing the education of tomorrow, we have listened to the voices of various communities: students, teachers, people who design schools, people who write books about schools, people who conduct research on school education and those who draw up development strategies for schools. Finally, we have listened to people who engage in an artistic reflection on the situation of schools.

So, how to make a school?