The School of Bartered Knowledge is a performance/installation that utilizes an open-ended framework for the circulation of knowledge and information. The school is an identifiable structure, designed for the democratic negotiation of knowledge. A self-contained school and archive, this structure acts as the building, furniture and library. Housed in the top of the structure are shelves that contain the collected epistemologies of various community interactions. Interactions are initiated through the street level engagement between myself and passers by.
The encounter is intended to re-structure the power relations of knowledge production through critical negotiation and ephemeral exchange. The distinctions that constitute the gap between valued and illegitimate knowledge becomes the central topic of discussion. What kinds of knowledge are worth trading? What kind of value do we give them? Once a “fair trade” is reached the transaction of knowledge is documented on index cards and archived into an accessible library.
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| Photographs by Henry Chan |
