During our first ARP workshop, John O’Riley introduced us to the term Paracosm whilst explaining the work of a PhD student who had used it as a method to construct their thesis. I found myself wondering if it might also have a place in pedagogy. In my previous essay I discussed the importance of creating spaces that encourage a multiplicity (or patchwork) of voices to be heard and celebrated within the institution. Could these spaces be assembled to create a whole world or universes? The term Paracosm was coined by Stephen A. MacKeith in the mid-70’s during a psychiatry study and describes a complex and richly detailed imaginary world, often created by a child, but which can develop and span over a number of years. The subjective universe may incorporate real-world or imaginary characters and conventions and the creator often has a deeply felt relationship with it (Janes, 2019). During the ARP workshop, O’Riley also mentioned its potential to have an effect on the physical world, and this is specifically what interests me; the weaving of reality and imagination to create a world that may have a tangible impact. Our teaching is inevitably influenced by the institutions we work within and this is something that I’ve always struggled to grapple with. With its culture of attainment, credit and awards and its increasingly neoliberal agenda, I sometimes question my role and position within UAL. This is a feeling I have often heard echoed by my colleagues who feel discomfort with the idea of working for an institution that has profit, rather than students, at its centre. However, rather than running away from the trouble, Haraway suggests that a potentially more productive alternative might be to stay with it (2016). As the American Feminist Bell Hooks notes, education becomes a practice of freedom when it teaches us to transgress by collectively imagining ways to move beyond boundaries (1994). Is it possible then, that within the institution, we can collectively imagine worlds that disrupt the boundaries we find ourselves in? How could I tell the story of these worlds?

What I am interested in exploring is the potential of developing paracosm as a community of practice methodology to imagine more socially just pedagogies (Wenger-Trayner, 2015). Micro-worlds, constructed collectively by staff and students, that imagine a more a more optimistic reality. Sitting within the confines of the institutions and its norms, these worlds also exist and operate beyond its boundaries. In an interview with Giorgio Camuffo, Jurgen Bey discusses how ‘within schools, it is important to take away the so-called “reality” and make the school into its own world, while still being aware of reality.’ (2013) In parallel to this he discusses the importance of surrealism in pedagogy as a way to explore things that one might be interested in without bearing the full weight and implications linked with reality. (Bey, 2013) Though this is outlined in the context of enabling students to explore ideas beyond the constraints of the real world, I think this kind of thinking can also apply to how we might consider our roles as educators beyond the constraints of the institutions. I’d like to connect this to graphic designer Tiger Dingsun’s brilliant essay: Chimeric Worlding where he discusses how world-building within the graphic design practice is a worthwhile tool because it can offer ‘a point of resistance against graphic design’s primary function as lubricant for the smooth flow of capital (be it economic or otherwise), which relies on a singular, totalizing interpretation of the world.’ I have spoken about the benefits of the departure from this singular narrative in my previous essay and what particularly interests me in the notion of paracosm is two fold: the first is the way that it gives the opportunity to weave the real and the imaginary through story-telling thus enabling the juxtaposition of multiple external and internal systems of (surreal) meaning, and the second is its possibility of growth over many years in a way that would enrich it, precisely because of its multiplicity. Dingsun notes that graphic designers ‘are already adept at invoking widely shared, conventional systems of meaning in order to make our work function on the basis of clarity, but it is also possible for clarity to exist simultaneously with another, murkier kind of effect that comes from fortifying conventional logic with a graphic designer’s own internal logic.’ What if in the context of the university, the ‘conventional systems of meaning’ become the institutional norms, and ‘the internal logic’ a more student-centered, transgressive and socially just pedagogical model that helps create a sense of belonging between staff and student? 

I realise that the process of Action Research in and of itself requires the identification of a problem, the imagination of a potential solution and the implementation of a tangible intervention that might work towards creating positive change. In some ways, Action Research could be a form of world-building: through the imagination of a better future, something is put into action that changes the current reality. I like to imagine the potential that would arise from telling the stories of all these small worlds that are constantly being created and acted upon. There are certain things we have no control over: The constant push for larger cohorts, a focus on assessment, access to space and budgets as well as racist and misogynistic power structures (to name a few). Within those boundaries, are there still opportunities to weave in alternate realities that have a tangible and positive impact, to imagine other schools within the school?  

Bibliography

Camuffo, G. & Bey, J. (2014) ‘Off the Radar’, About Learning and Design.

Dingsun, T. (unknown) Chimeric Worlding: What can Graphic Design Learn from Poetics and Worldbuilding? Available online at: https://tdingsun.github.io/worlding/ (accessed 04.10.23)

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York. Herder and Herder

Janes, G. (2019) Paracosm: The unchaining of reality, Artefact, Accessible online: https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2019/10/22/paracosm-the-unchaining-of-reality-2/ (accessed 04.10.23)

​​Haraway, D. J. (2016) Staying with the Trouble. Duke University Press

Hooks. B, (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York: Routledge p. 207.

Wenger-Trayner, B & E. (2015) Introduction to Communities and Practices, Available at: https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ (Accessed 04.10.2023)