When: January 16-21, 2017
Where: Santiago, Chile
Institutions: Center of Emerging Interfaces, DRCLAS, and Adolfo Ibañez University
Facilitator: Sergio Araya
A team of Pre-Texts trainers led by Sergio Araya (Adolfo Ibañez University) facilitated a Pre-Texts workshop for educational leaders at the Adolfo Ibañez University in collaboration with the Center of Emerging Interfaces and DRCLAS.
In mid-January, a diverse group of teachers and professionals from different disciplines gathered at the Adolfo Ibanez University, in the pre-mountain range of Santiago de Chile, with one interest: participating in the Pre-Texts workshop with Professor Sergio Araya, Dean of Design at the AIU, and Professor Doris Sommer, Director of Cultural Agents.
Briefly, Doris facilitated the first activity: a warm up that involved making a human knot that had to be unraveled. This served to “break the ice” because many of the participants did not know each other yet. Then they made cardboard books, listened to the text read aloud and asked questions to the text to publish in the clothesline.
The group dynamics around the text surprised everyone, day after day.The text was “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. It is a science fiction story, and the participants approached it in different ways: from plastic arts, acting, biology, food, design with laser cutting, electronics, pedagogy, journalism and going off on different tangents. The tangents are especially important in Pre-Texts and refer to how the text is approached by the reader when unraveling it from different angles.
Doris recommended that participants “go off on a tangent” and bring in documents related directly or indirectly to the text. Participants brought in a variety of different texts that were related in some way to the original text. For example, a new discovery about the geography of the planet Venus and an article on female power. These were hung on the clothesline and served as reminders as to how everyone understands the story through different perspectives.
After five days together in the foothills of the pre-mountain range of Santiago, participants were united around a text through an unforgettable experience– all thanks to Pre-Texts.
Watch a video of the workshop here.
