Knowledge and Not-Knowledge Production in the Art School

First, what we define as “knowledge” in an art school inevitably defines where and when we see knowledge production and knowledge acquisition occurring. Because of this, from the institution’s perspective, knowledge is not produced within an art school unless the outcome of a particular sequence of activities or inquiries can be seen as knowledge. At a very high level, we could think about this as the difference between coursework and the conversations unfolding in the hallways after class: one gets recognized for credit, whereas the other is simply a series of social encounters, no matter the level of engagement.