05/2024: Introducing Tentacular Pedagogy and FAB PALS in Copenhagen

The 1^st International Conference on Embodied Education is aimed at conveying a community of people interested in embodied education and the related topics, like enaction, emotion, extended mind, embedded cognition, sports, wellbeing, and the performative arts (such as music, dance and drama). The goal is to bring together artists, scholars, practitioners, teachers and students to reflect on themes like the mind-body nexus, lived body, agency, consciousness, intercorporeality, social mind, and similar topics. With this conference we want to cut the first turf toward an international movement of people dedicated to this topic. It is hosted by the Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Participants are encouraged to present ideas, practices and results on state-of-the-art research within the field of embodied education.

My performance-lecture responds to its themes of:

• the role of the body in teaching 
• plurality of bodily identities, e.g. gender, ethnicity, inclusion; 
• embodied pedagogies; 
• bodily expression in educational contexts; 
• educational discourse, policies and politics

I introduce ‘Tentacular Pedagogy’ (TP), an embodied, inter-disciplinary strategy to teaching and (un-)learning that seeks to transform HE culture. Drawing on kinaesthetic and neurodivergent performance and participatory art, non-western body-mind poetics, as well as the extraordinary neuro-biological features of three hearts and nine minds of the octopus (hence ‘tentacular’), TP counters Cartesian dualism and critiques the academy’s sedentary and logocentric conventions. Prioritising equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), as well as creative thinking (the highest order of learning in the revised Blooms taxonomy), I will outline the heart(s) of TP, namely neurodivergence, decolonisation, intersectionality, as well as its 9 dimensions, namely Critical Creativity, Co-Creation, Collage, Can-do (resourcefulness), Curiosity, Community + (under-)Commons + Civic consciousness, Circulation (sustainability), Curating Change through Care, and Courage. 

I share case studies, including a new pilot project FAB PALS (Futures Artful Biennale and Partnering Artful Leaders scheme) commissioned by the Social Practice Lab, Winchester School of Art, as well as other examples from my portfolio in UK, Japan and Singapore as a HE teacher and consultant, and lived experience as a neurodivergent learner, to show how embodied tactics can respond to UNESCO’s call for HE to ‘repair injustices while transforming the future’ by 2050, with a new ‘social contract’ that prioritises ‘human dignity and cultural diversity’, plus ‘care, reciprocity, and solidarity’ (2021). 

The following is what I shared on my Instagram, over a video clip of red squirrels playing at the Østre Anlæg public park.

Sick of calls for ceasefire/divestment/change? 

You’re in luck. The sun’s shining, I’m in a park in Copenhagen, and feel like being kind. So here’s a clip of cute red squirrels + my key notes on keynote lectures. They’re freshly-baked, as I’ve just emerged from a conference on embodied education here, and have enjoyed a few fab keynotes (and given ~25 myself) over the years. 

1) Keynotes set scene/tone of a conference. Who speak and what on, say a lot about the organisers and their agenda. 

Tip: All-male white cis-het middle-aged panels in 2024 isn’t a good look.  

It looks iffy too if these speakers define education as their ‘moral right’ to ‘normalise’ kids, and their role as gatekeeping’ traditions’ — which happen to be continental cis-het patriarchal colonialist systems. 

2) What’s the power dynamics between speakers, and between speakers & participants? To what extent can the latter raise questions/be heard? 

Nope, it’s not on if keynotes say ‘there are many caring females in the audience today’ and do a ‘calm down dear’ when participants call this out as sexist. Or brush aside Heidegger’s fascist past as ‘scandals’ that ‘we don’t have time to discuss’ — then go on to spend a copious amount of time to discuss how they just can’t afford time/resources to discuss such trivial matters.

3) Yep, participants can see through it if you sandwich one lone token female/POC amongst the keynotes, whose job it is to do the heavy lifting to cover these matters.

What Sara Ahmed said in 2018 — about how women of colour often ‘end up doing diversity’ as well as ‘being diversity’, and those who are ‘a bit different’ and point out institutional sexism and racism are deemed ’rocking the boat — remains true. 

4) Yep, some of these women who are thick-skinned/autistic are happy to fulfil the caricature of the ‘angry POC’ in order to keep making noises about why neuro-queer/disabled/deviant bodies of knowledge matter, and matter quite a bit in the discussion of embodiment & education.  

5) Yep, some of these are even kind enough to say more about in a next keynote lecture. Title? The Politics of Keynote Lectures: Towards a Love-Led Approach. 

You’re welcome. 

The text was born out of profound frustration at some of the harmful approaches of the conference. I had raised a few questions during both the keynotes and workshop sessions, and tried to organise a few other academics — including the token woman keynote speaker, and a professor of education from University of London — who had been similarly alarmed, to put together a concerted responses on the final day of the conference for the session on ‘What next’. Alas – our dissent did not just fall on deaf ears, but was shut down.

I did learn about cool projects including a successful dance/theatre programme for engineering students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne led by interdisciplinary doctoral candidate Melanie Studer in my panel.  I have also been asked to participate in a podcast by a Dutch-based postdoctoral practitioner Liz Wientjes called The Embodied Educator which I will record in September.

The work continues.

Images used in the performance-lecture slideshow include those created by other people. The key credits include:

• The pink elephant and blue octopus were drawn by participants of #MagicCarpet 2017-2018, from which I created the various scenes
• Image of Slade banner for Palestine was by @JonandAli on Instagram here

The following is my reflection on the exhibitions I saw in Copenhagen on an Instagram post here, posted on 1st June 2024.

Leadership means speaking out + up, in a timely fashion. Nope, the requisite ‘pre-election period of sensitivity’ isn’t excuse to keep lips stiff. Live-streamed genocides (and other violences behind closed doors/covered-up) aren’t going away. Silence is complicity – funny as it comes from the usually vocal majority. Those of us asking the organisations we’re linked with to come clean are still pushing/waiting. Meanwhile, here’s what I saw in Copenhagen, where artworks speak loud & clear:

1) ‘Foreigners, please don’t leave us alone with the Danes!’ by Superflex (2002) @smkmuseum Superflex (b1993) calls itself an ‘expanding collective of humans and non humans working with an expanding idea of art’.

Its meaning indeed expands when in dialogue with ‘Multiculturalists, Please deal with the Danish Racism and Leave us Foreigners alone’ by Nermin Duraković (2018), an artist (b1979) from the former Yugoslavia based in Denmark.

3 and 4) Over at @copenhagen_contemporary is a solo show by Kapwani Kiwanga (b1978), who is Canada’s representative at Venice now. Her work takes on the Big (Modernist) Boys in a mellow — and thus — MAJESTIC voice, including ‘Sisal Curve’ (2024). Sisal fibre ‘tells of the power of a single migratory plant species not only to transform a country’s agrarian culture, but also to carry hopes of economic security post-independence’, says the wall text.

Kiwanga’s 5) ‘Pink Blue’ (2017) looks like, but is ethically and politically faaaaar away from

6) James Turrell’s ‘Aftershock’ (2021), which you can’t film. You’d better be fit too, as it’s not for those with fits. The vibe is minimalist holy temple, and the steep stairs kick out those in wheelchairs. Just like Olafur Eliasson’s 2019 macho, wheelchair-unfriendly ‘masterpiece’ mis-step at Tate. Classy.

To detox, step into 7-9) neurodivergent collective @projectartworks world. I liked 8-9) Kate Adams’ ‘Cosmology of Care’ (2024) which maps the possibilities and barriers of the social care systems for disabled people.

9) Let’s return to the SMK for the final word. Or phrase. ‘There’s always room at the top’ by the all-women group ‘Bob Smith’.

Hear! Hear!

Here is the list of references from my chapter ‘UN-LEARNING TENTACULARLY’ from my book NEURO-FUTURISM, which is also relevant for my performance-lecture.

^[1] hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York; London: Routledge. 

^[2] Ahmed, Sara. 2021. Complaint! Durham: Duke University Press Books; Sian, Katy P. 2019. Navigating Institutional Racism in British Universities. Palgrave Macmillan; Blell, Mwenza, Shan-Jan Sarah Liu, and Audrey Verma. 2023. ‘Working in Unprecedented Times: Intersectionality and Women of Color in UK Higher Education in and beyond the Pandemic’. Gender, Work & Organization 30, no. 2: 353–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12907.

^[3] Berg, Lawrence, Edward Huijbens, and Henrik Larsen. 2016. ‘Producing Anxiety in the Neoliberal University’. Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe Canadien 60. 10 March 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12261.

^[4] Laurencin, Cato T., and Joanne M. Walker. 2020. ‘A Pandemic on a Pandemic: Racism and COVID-19 in Blacks’. Cell Systems 11 (1): 9–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2020.07.002.

^[5] Arday, Jason, and Christopher Jones. 2022. ‘Same Storm, Different Boats: The Impact of COVID-19 on Black Students and Academic Staff in UK and US Higher Education’. Higher Education, October, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00939-0.

^[6] Ahmed, Sara. 2018. ‘Rocking the Boat: Women of Colour as Diversity Workers’. In Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy, edited by Jason Arday and Heidi Safia Mirza, 331–48. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60261-5_19.

^[7] Havergal, Chris. 2022. ‘Fight “Bonfire of the Humanities”, Urges Mary Beard’. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/fight-bonfire-humanities-urges-mary-beard.

^[8] Phillips, Sam. ‘Art under Threat: The Growing Crisis in Higher Education’. Royal Academy of Arts blog, 20 March 2019. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/art-under-threat-crisis-britain-higher-education.

^[9] Pearce, Michael J. 2019. Why Art Schools Are Disappearing. https://fee.org/articles/why-art-schools-are-disappearing/.

^[10] Sharratt, Chris. 2017. ‘University of Kent to Close Its School of Music and Fine Art’. A-n The Artists Information Company. https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/university-kent-close-school-music-fine-art/.

^[11] Elkins, James, ed. 2009. Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art. New Academia Publishing, LLC.

^[12] BBC News. 2023. Poor Quality University Courses Face Limits on Student Numbers. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66216005.

^[13] Annetts, Deborah. 2018. ‘Arts Risk Becoming the Preserve of the Elite Once Again’. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/04/18/arts-risk-becoming-preserve-elite/.

^[14] Tan, Kai Syng. 2021. ‘Towards an Anti-Racist Fine Art Ph.D.: “Anti-Racism Productive Antagonisms” (ARPA) for the Supervisor, Student and Examiner’. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education 20 (1): 49–63. https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00029_1.

^[15] Tan. Unreasonable Adjustments. 

^[1] Tan, Kai Syng. A ‘Tentacular Pedagogy’ to Lead 2050 (Commissioned Keynote Lecture in the Form of a Performance-Lecture for European League of Institutes of the Arts Teachers Academy or ELIA, Which Comprises 300,000+ HE Stakeholders from 282 Institutions in 48 Countries). 26 November 2021;  https://kaisyngtan.com/artful/tentacularpedagogy/; Tan. ‘Using Tentacular Pedagogy’.

^[2] UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. ‘Pathways to 2050 and beyond: Findings from a Public Consultation on the Futures of Higher Education’, 2021. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379985?3=null&queryId=f456a96a-5fa8-4925-8f27-a0ab2810f2e2.

^[3] Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. 1st edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. 

^[4] Smithsonian Ocean. ‘Cephalopods’, 30 April 2018. https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/cephalopods.

^[5] Nakajima, Ryuta, Shuichi Shigeno, Letizia Zullo, Fabio De Sio, and Markus R. Schmidt. ‘Cephalopods Between Science, Art, and Engineering: A Contemporary Synthesis’. Frontiers in Communication 3 (2018). https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00020.

^[6] Documentaries on streaming channels aside, there is a network for non-linear thinkers: The Octopus Movement. ‘Manifesto’. https://www.theoctopusmovement.org/manifesto. 

^[16] Tan. Giant Octopussies.

^[17] Gill, John. ‘Omnicrisis? Or Just Business as Usual?’ Times Higher Education (THE), 26 May 2022. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/omnicrisis-or-just-business-usual.

^[18] Bhopal, Kalwant. 2015. The Experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic Academics: A Comparative Study of the Unequal Academy. London ; New York, NY: Routledge.

^[19] Mangione, Salvatore, and Rolando Del Maestro. 2019. ‘Was Leonardo Da Vinci Dyslexic?’ The American Journal of Medicine 132, no. 7: 892–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2019.02.019.

^[20] Catani, Marco, and Paolo Mazzarello. 2019.  ‘Grey Matter Leonardo Da Vinci: A Genius Driven to Distraction’. Brain 142, no. 6: 1842–46. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awz131.

^[21] Tan, Kai Syng, and Backdoor Broadcasting Company. 2019. ‘Too Much/Not Enough: Neurodiversity and Cultural Production’. https://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2019/05/too-muchnot-enough-neurodiversity-and-cultural-production/.

^[22] Moten, Fred, and Stefano Harney. ‘The University and the Undercommons’. Social Text 22, no. 2 (2004): 101–15. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-22-2_79-101.

^[23] Tan. ‘Anti-Racism Productive Antagonisms’.

^[24] Bhopal, Kalwant. 2020. ‘White Female Academics Are Being Privileged above Women – and Men – of Colour’. Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/28/uks-white-female-academics-are-being-privileged-above-women-and-men-of-colour.

^[25] Grove, Jack. 2023. ‘UKRI’s Diversity Strategy “Doesn’t Mention Race”’. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ukris-diversity-strategy-doesnt-mention-race.

^[26] Adelaine, Addy. 2023. ‘@AddyAdelaine: Just Had a Catch up Meeting with @UKRI_News … ’. Tweet. Twitter. https://twitter.com/AddyAdelaine/status/1656708272701812737.

^[27] Advance HE. 2023. ‘Professional Standards Framework Review’. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/professional-standards-framework-review#video.

^[28] Office for Students. 2020. Degree Attainment: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Students. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-opportunities/effective-practice/black-asian-and-minority-ethnic-students/.

^[29] Equality and Human Rights Commission. 2019. ‘Tackling Racial Harassment: Universities Challenged Report’. 120.

^[30] University College London. 2014. Why Isn’t My Professor Black?. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/play/ucl-talks/why-isnt-my-professor-black.

^[31] Arday, Jason. 2019. E031: Growing up Black in the 90s. Surviving Society. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ZOVzuBFgIAps4CNQs7N28.

^[32] Mahanty, Shannon. 2023. ‘I Was Illiterate until I Was 18, Now I’m Cambridge’s Youngest Black Professor’. Evening Standard. https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/jason-arday-cambridge-university-youngest-black-professor-b1065627.html

^[33] Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1989. ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 (1). https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf.

^[34] Museum of Transology. 2023. ‘QTIBIPOC’. In Museum of Transology. https://www.museumoftransology.com/qtibipoc.

^[35] Obasi. ‘Black Social Workers’.

^[36] Kaufman, James C., and Ronald A. Beghetto. 2009. ‘Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity’. Review of General Psychology 13, no. 1: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688.

^[37] Moten, and Harney. ‘The University’.

^[38] Harney and Moten. Undercommons. 31.

^[39] Krathwohl, David R. 2002. ‘A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview’. Theory Into Practice 41, no. 4: 212–18. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2.

^[40] Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.

^[41] Pellegrino, James, M.L. Hilton, Board Education, Division Education, and National Council. 2013. Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century. https://doi.org/10.17226/13398.

^[42] Thornton, Alan. Artist, Researcher, Teacher: A Study of Professional Identity in Art and Education. Bristol: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

^[43] Elkins, James. 2008. ‘Who Really Needs Art PhDs?’. Website. http://www.jameselkins.com/index.php/essays/198-interview-with-elpida-karaba.

^[44] QAA for Higher Education. 2019. ‘Subject Benchmark Statement: Art and Design’. QAA. http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Pages/Subject-benchmark-statement—Art-and-design-.aspx.

^[45] Tan. 2018. Brisk/Risks (Full Film with BSL), 2018. https://vimeo.com/336958029.

^[46] Harney and Moten. Undercommons. 38.

^[47] UNESCO, Pathways to 2050. 

^[48] hooks, bell. 1999. Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press. 213.

^[49] Harney and Moten. Undercommons. 37. 

^[50] Singer, Judy. 2016. NeuroDiversity: The Birth of an Idea. 2 edition.

^[51] Patterson, Leslie, Shelia C Baldwin, Juan J Araujo, Ragina Shearer, and Mary Stewart. 2010. ‘Look, Think, Act: Using Critical Action Research to Sustain Reform in Complex Teaching/Learning Ecologies’. 19.

^[52] Linan, Steve. 2012. ‘USC Lab Encourages Participatory Learning’. USC News. https://news.usc.edu/45089/usc-lab-encourages-participatory-learning/.

^[53] Cormier, Dave. 2008. ‘Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum’. Innovate: Journal of Online Education 4, no. 5.

^[54] Haraway, Donna. 2016. ‘Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene – Journal #75 September 2016 – e-Flux’. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/75/67125/tentacular-thinking-anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/.

^[55] Branlat, Jennifer, Juan Velasquez, and Ingvil Hellstrand. 2022. ‘Tentacular Classrooms: Feminist Transformative Learning for Thinking and Sensing’. Journal of Transformative Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/15413446211068556.

^[56] Zarabadi, Shiva, Carol A. Taylor, Nikki Fairchild, and Anna Rigmor Moxnes. 2019. ‘Feeling Medusa: Tentacular Troubling of Academic Positionality, Recognition and Respectability’. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology 10, no. 2–3: 87–111. https://doi.org/10.7577/rerm.3671.

^[57] Branlat et al. ‘Tentacular Classrooms’.

^[58] Bhopal, Kalwant. ‘White Female Academics’. 

^[59] Cargle, Rachel Elizabeth. ‘When Feminism Is White Supremacy in Heels’. Harper’s BAZAAR, 16 August 2018. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a22717725/what-is-toxic-white-feminism/.

^[60] Etymonline. ‘Curation’. https://www.etymonline.com/word/curation 

^[61] Harney and Moten. Undercommons. 27

^[62] Tan, Kai Syng. 2022. ‘STUDY WITH ME: Creative Arts Leadership MA from 09/2023’. Artful Agitation. https://kaisyngtan.com/artful/creative-arts-leadership-ma/.

^[63] Zineb Berrais. 2022-2023. Creative Arts Leadership MA audio-visual assets. 

^[64] Manchester Metropolitan University. 2023. ‘MA Creative Arts Leadership clip @mcrschart’. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co7nxAeAKYw/?hl=en.

^[65] Tan. ‘Anti-Racism Productive Antagonisms’.