Crying Classroom: workshops
2022-24
mobile interdsiciplinary insititution
Crying Classroom is an inclusive and collaborative project aiming to exchange methods and strategies for dealing with/and understaning crying within an institution. The project was founded in 2023 by prof. Dr. Birte Kleine-Benne, Nadja Kracunovic and Rand Ibrahim.
We offer workshops, performances, lectures, exercises, readings, and screenings that tackle the complex topic of crying within different institutions. If interested, write at cryingclassroom(at)gmail.com
2024
‘’We need to talk about Racism at out University’’
29.05.2024, Weimar, Germany
Workshop at the Symposium at the Bauhaus-Universität WeimarModerators: Rand Ibrahim and Nadja Kracunovic
Hosted by Bauhaus Module ‘’ Bauhaus Fragility - We need to talk about Racism at our University’’
Host: Lea Maria Wittich, Mona Mahall, Arijit Bhattacharyya
“Thoughts on crying”
19.01.2024, Vienna, Austria
Workshops at the PCAP (Post-conceptual Art Practices) at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien
Moderators: Rand Ibrahim, Nadja Kracunovic
Host: Melina Vesley
link to the documentation︎︎︎
“Mapping Human Rights with Tears”
26.04.2024, Reykjavík, Iceland
Workshop (hybrid) @ The Iceland University of the Arts
Moderators: Rand Ibrahim, Nadja Kracunovic
Collaborator: Laura Wiemers
link to the documentation︎︎︎
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Crying as a subject of research within an academic art historical and theoretical context has only been marginally examined. Giving space for this topic to be explored interdisciplinarily was the aim of The Crying Institute: an art theoretical and historical seminar held at the Bauhaus University Weimar in 2022–23, by Prof. Dr. Birte Kleine-Benne, with assistance from the artists Be Koerner, Tatiana Theo Ilichenko, Nadja Kracunovic, and Rand Ibrahim.
Focused on the research in crying – including perspectives from medicine, biology, anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, social studies, cultural studies, politics, history, gender history, religion, semiotics, sociology, and communication theory – the institute compiled key theoretical and historical texts, significant terminologies, suitable methods, and existing artworks and practices that have investigated crying as a topic. The aim was to become operational as an institute of crying experts.
Coming from an urge to move to a physical space, the institute evolved into a new stage of research. The result is the Crying Classroom, a research space for students and art practitioners of all disciplines to instrumentalize new artistic strategies, pedagogies, and research methodologies within a culture of emotions.
The Crying Classroom was founded to explore crying through a variety of mediums and approaches in the contexts of different institutions. Targeting practitioners of art and various disciplines, as well as students, the Crying Classroom functions as a mobile, interdisciplinary classroom. The project has thus far established collaborative classrooms in 2023/24 as with Der Laden and Bauhaus University Weimar in Germany, conducted PCAP (Post-conceptual Art Practices) workshops at the University of Fine Arts Vienna, and an online workshop with The Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavík.
Crying Classroom Founders, 2023
