The double-bind of utopian education: where is the location of the alternative?
Raha Khademi
When Frederic Jameson speaks of utopia and the impossibility of its imagination, he considers this incapacity not as a result of an “individual failure of imagination but as the result of the systemic, cultural, and ideological closure of which we are all in one way or another prisoners”.[1] According to this framework, imagining or envisioning a symbolic form of an ideal world entails transcending and surpassing previous and current structures. We need structures that make imagination possible, to let feelings flourish, and to envision possibilities. All these practices, after all, are aesthetic endeavours.
Following this argument, the greater question is whether such a transition is fundamentally possible, and if so, how. Many thinkers have tried to find the answer to this question in their own methods of thinking; among them, Spivak sees the solution in what she calls aesthetic education. She believes aesthetic education is the only way to prepare for and make a utopian world possible. However, according to her, the only possible hope lies in the subaltern and to “ab-use” the enlightenment legacy since humanities have become marginal in the global north.[2] But here we face two problems: one is that the subaltern end “cannot inform a university press book”,[3] and the other aspect is that every form of “ab-use” inherently places the periphery in a lower position than the centre by default. In this situation, the only glimmer of hope lies in a situation of a double bind and creative ways to work with it, and since this is the only way towards the future, the solution is not to eliminate the double bind. Instead, it is to play with it and self-consciously engage with its nature. Enter the realm of the periphery, the immigrant, the subaltern—they perceive space through a unique lens. For them, space is a multilayer phenomenon; they've mastered navigating the liminal spaces and borders, thus grasping the art of dwelling neither here nor there. They transmute either/or into neither/nor, embracing this nuanced stance.
Building upon these notions, I aim to shed light on the concept of a peripheral mode of aesthetic education tailored to the needs of those inhabiting liminal spaces. In the coming chapter, you will read an interview I conducted with the editorial director of Kaarnamaa: Institute of Art and Visual Culture, a trans-geographical institute dedicated to art and visual culture and its scholarship mainly in the Persian language. We will delve into its educational role within Iranian society, both inside the country and in the diaspora, and the unique influence of Goldsmiths University on this institute. Furthermore, in our conversation, we will attempt to allude to how the transformation program at Goldsmiths can affect institutes like Kaarnamaa. Additionally, we will aim to demonstrate the interconnection of these processes of aesthetic education between the centre and the periphery, highlighting how issues in one sphere can ultimately impact the other.
This interview occurred online while I was seated at the Goldsmiths University café, where I have spent a significant amount of time over the past nine months sharing what I have been learning at Goldsmiths with my Persian-speaking friends and students through lectures, meetings, and roundtable discussions. The university café, for me, symbolically represents a liminal space where my two worlds intertwine. This space aptly mirrors the diasporic experience based on my own lived reality: being simultaneously present at Goldsmiths, Kaarnamaa, Iran, and London in both time and space. This café, for me, was where the two-layered aesthetic education happened, but at the same time, it was the place for the alternative and diasporic experience. I created many spaces of co-learning and thinking within this physical experience, and this makes the university café represent the idea of space as a relational phenomenon, which, according to David Harvey, is nothing but the “processes that define them”.[4]
Interview:
Raha Khademi: I know that you graduated from Goldsmiths University, and as you know, Goldsmith is undergoing a transformation program that could affect the very existence of the Visual Cultures department that I know you studied in.
How do you remember this university and the Visual Cultures department? Please talk briefly about your memories of this educational space and tell me when you finished your studies there. How did it shape your career afterwards?
Hossein Eyalati: Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Yes, I am aware of the current changes at Goldsmiths. Yes, I studied at Goldsmiths in the Visual Cultures department. I graduated in 2016, which was very interesting for me as I was working with Kaarnamaa. I'm currently the editorial director of Kaarnamaa Institute, a research and educational organisation dedicated to studying modern global art.
I've always been looking for different ways of addressing the specific problems connected to the region I'm coming from and the concerns related to Kaarnamaa as an alternative education system. When I started at Goldsmiths, it was very interesting to see that Goldsmiths has a dedicated department to Visual Cultures. One of the things that was very interesting for me was that the whole community of scholars working on Visual Cultures gathered together and became very focused in one single department, working on the subject from different angles.
But the reason that I'm saying that Visual Cultures was essential for me at that point, and what I really learned from Goldsmiths when I was studying there was because countries like Iran or countries that are coming from the regions with a lot of conflict, they usually have a disconnection with their past. We know this very famous fact that your present position always controls and compromises your past. In the regions that have been facing radical changes, colonialism, and being controlled by totalitarian governments, people usually don't have access to their collective memories, archives and historical facts. Visual Cultures is an effective tool here, offering insight into the power of images and their influence on culture. This shift from being solely an art institution to focusing on Visual Cultures proved effective for Kaarnamaa in understanding the situation in Iran.
R.K: This effect is also reflected in the name of the Institute because before you graduated from Goldsmiths, Kaarnamaa didn't have the term visual culture in its name. Can you discuss this kind of reflection? You talked about how the knowledge you learned at Goldsmiths is reflected in Kaarnamaa. Can you briefly discuss this reflection and how Goldsmiths University's structural change program could have long-term consequences for institutions like Kaarnamaa?
H.E: Well, I think that the most crucial part for me was that Goldsmiths took the risk. I see Goldsmiths as an alternative academic institution compared to more conservative universities, specifically in the UK. The fact that they took this risk and developed Visual Cultures as a department was reassuring for us. The fact that we know a dedicated department to it was very helpful in understanding and providing the framework we needed for our work.
It has been very helpful for us, but, of course, we always know that the role of academia is to narrow down fields of studies and, go deeper into the differences between them, not just merge them or like mix them; mixing them up would, of course, effect what we're doing as an alternative educational organisation because we need that kind of experimental approach. For our work, we need to compare what we're doing to double-check what sort of work we're doing and understand different fields of our work because we are teaching visual culture at Kaarnamaa, not only taking it as a Framework.
So it's the idea of merging these departments. Although it could have some benefits, maybe in the future, in the long term, I think it's kind of difficult to see that it's going to be very beneficial, like institutions like us that are actually taking the same kind of risk in adopting this framework in our everyday work.
R.K: It was very interesting that you described Goldsmiths as an alternative educational system in comparison to more conservative Universities. Kaarnamaa can also be considered as an alternative institution, but being alternative, of course, is a characteristic that is always defined and understood within a specific context and framework. It seems to be a somewhat relative concept. So, do you consider Kaarnamaa Institute to be a form of para-educational program? And if so, in your opinion, what are the differences and similarities between such institutions, such alternative institutions in the global north and global south?
Figure 3. Unknown, 2023, A group of Iranian students in Tehran gathered together to collectively participate in a lecture by Raha Khademi, broadcasted from London, discussing some aspects of Iranian visual culture during the 80s.
H.E: Yeah, that's a really intriguing question. It's quite challenging to answer, honestly. The reason we founded Kaarnamaa in 2009 was because we all came from a totalitarian system with heavy censorship in Iranian universities and academia. We witnessed university professors being fired for not aligning with government ideologies, replaced by pro-government advocates. This resulted in many scholars being silenced or forced to leave the country along with students. Consequently, there's a significant Iranian diaspora of students, lecturers, researchers, and writers. At the time, we felt the need to establish a cultural hub to connect these individuals, both inside and outside the country. The government's insistence on national borders made it difficult for diaspora members to maintain connections, so we aimed to bridge this gap and foster scholarly exchange.
But another reason for this is the changing landscape of higher education. Globally, universities and academia are no longer the sole providers of knowledge or education. Nowadays, numerous alternative educational institutions exist, including museums, smaller non-profit organizations, and online platforms, all fostering education and dialogue. When considering this situation, we must examine both sides.
On one hand, there are limitations within Iran's educational system. However, we never aimed to replace traditional academia with Kaarnamaa, as it's not feasible for a small institution. Instead, our focus was on providing diverse educational opportunities for students inside and outside the country. Many students who leave Iran still share the same concerns and questions but may find that traditional art institutions abroad don't address their needs. Therefore, we aimed to bridge this gap by offering an alternative educational system, albeit on a smaller scale, while also addressing regional limitations.
R.K: I'm interested in delving further into the core idea behind Kaarnamaa, particularly the emphasis on creating a hub and fostering connections among scholars. It seems that a central aspect of your work revolves around establishing a space for connection. I'm curious about how this space manifests itself within the diaspora, especially considering that most, if not all, of your activities take place online. This space isn't physical but rather conceptual, open to thought and action. It's a space that requires continual construction, definition, and development.
Reflecting on the situation at Goldsmiths, where students are grappling with concerns about the university's Transformation program and exploring alternative modes of education, including spaces for aesthetic dialogue, I wonder what insights institutions like Kaarnamaa can offer. How can you redefine the concept of an educational space, both in its tangible and abstract forms?
H.E: Well, part of the question comes back to the whole digital essence of Kaarnamaa. Of course, we are a digital platform, and I think this is a necessity for the specific problem that we are trying to solve based on our situation as being a very displaced community of scholars.
And also these terminologies that you refer to, like a hub or a space for connection, they all go back to this whole idea of the institution because we are trying to embrace the idea of the new possibility that was actually very encouraged in the whole pandemic years. And then. Also, before that, it was also becoming a very important way of education for so many established institutions, for example, Coursera or other universities who had online courses for students who are not able to travel to the actual physical space of the institution. So, yes, there is that the whole digital concept of the institution, and when we say digital, we are actually using this digital space, this kind of metaverse as an e-campus as a kind of a virtual space if you like, but as you said, it is a space. And then, and whenever we talk about the community of people, we need space for them.
This virtual space and context we're constructing are vital. In this era, everyone faces increasing displacement. We're all immigrants; immigration isn't solely a concern for the third world or global South. It's a global concern, even for the global North. So, we're all moving bodies, albeit for different reasons. Therefore, we must build upon this concept and create spaces dedicated to connecting people, fostering an ecosystem or cultural hub that brings individuals together. However, we realise this contrasts with the traditional idea of an institution. When we think of institutions, we often imagine physical buildings, like classical Greek architecture. But this perception is changing out of necessity, not simply because it's trendy.
Using platforms like these is interesting because they offer individual connection within one's private space, like with a laptop in your bedroom, yet simultaneously link to a much larger community. Institutions like ours are responding to immediate needs, prompting the development of virtual structures based on for this purpose arrangements to address political and social demands. This approach serves as a valuable model for larger, established institutions. For instance, during the uprising in Iran, Kaarnamaa published four issues dedicated to images provided by anonymous individuals, reflecting a digital culture of resistance. As a cultural institution, we grappled with how to navigate this challenge. And these are the types of things that larger institutions need to examine, drawing from the shared experiences of smaller and alternative institutions, enriching the broader structure of knowledge and spaces.
Figure 4. Raha Khademi, 2024, Goldsmiths University café.
R.K: I remember that during the last months, I have had to do my Kaarnamaa-related online meetings in physical spaces within Goldsmiths many times, and at the same time, I was not really in those spaces. I was somewhere else, perhaps in a small towm near Shiraz, or a neighbourhood in Tehran. That is a maximum definition of understanding space, not as an absolute or even relative one, but more like a relational one to which people bring all different kinds of layers of experiences and live experiences.
H.E: That's actually very interesting. As you mentioned, it's intriguing because we typically define a space based on its power. When discussing institutions, we often envision classical buildings. However, this differs when considering art institutions. When we think of it, the whole function of the space and the entire idea of the space comes from the community and the people who are connected within that space. If the idea of connection, people's connection, and the hub that that space provides, I think the way these kinds of digital spaces provide those is more, I want to say, democratic, at least in the whole essence of the idea. I know that this digital space also is provided by Silicon Valley companies. And, of course, that's a different topic. But again, because this space belongs to the same people who are Making it or building the culture of it, it's a more, I would say, democratic and pluralistic idea.
R.K: Absolutely. If I understand correctly, you're highlighting the importance of having infrastructure to envision new spaces. These infrastructures are indeed essential. The key question is how we establish the right relationships to cultivate alternative spaces.
H.E: Hence, we're essentially aiming to define the infrastructures that enable these connections.
R.K: Or essentially, infrastructures of feelings.
Raha Khademi | Spring 2024
[1] Fredric Jameson, “Progress versus Utopia; Or, Can We Imagine the Future? (Progrès Contre Utopie, Ou: Pouvons-Nous Imaginer l’avenir),” Science Fiction Studies 9, no. 2 (1982): 153, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4239476.
[2] Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 1–2.
[3] Ibid., 2.
[4] Noel Castree and Derek Gregory, eds., David Harvey: A Critical Reader (Wiley-Blackwell; 1st edition, January 16, 2006), 273.
