Exploring Spaces of Not Knowing : an Artist View

Abstract: The understanding, I draw from this inquiry has come through a muddy, and complex entangledprocess. I have been re-turning like a "Baradian" earthworm, to experiences of being, in spacesof not-knowing. Digesting the mud, moving it, once more, like worms do, through the body.By doing an agential cut, into two spaces, eventually three strong agents unfold: Risk,Vulnerability, and Trust. Out of this result, an ethical and pedagogical question arise: How totake account of Vulnerability and Trust when encouraging our students to Risk?Entering a space of not knowing is at the foundation of my art practice. When as an arteducator,I went to China to inquire into the educational strategies of Chinese Classical Painting,I found myself thrown into a multitude of spaces of not knowing. This thesis, is an inquiry intohow being in such spaces, perform knowledge. To explore this, I return to the field-notes andvisual material including a report in the form of a visual essay of the study from 2011. I re-turnto this material with new tools and concepts inspired by Karen Barads metaphors of diffractionand earth-worms approach, as well as my artists tools: brush, water colours, ink, and paper;inrtoducing painting as a tool for analysis.As a theoretical approach, I entangle the flat ontology of Deleuze and Guattari, and theonto-epistem-ology of Barad, with the philosophical traditions in China of Buddhism and Dao.From an onto-epistem-ological perspective, I ask the question: "If we know about the worldbecause we are of the world," what knowledge then appear, when we experience our being in theworld as a space of not knowing. In this study, I have found that a space of not knowing performlearning through experiences of Vulnerability, Risk and Trust.The art part of this thesis is connected to Risk as well as to Vulnerability and Trust. Itfeatures a rope hanging from the ceiling to the floor. It is a rope that has been used during severalyears by a Circus artist during performances; hanging high up in the ceiling — demanding focusand presence from him. The installation at Konstfack spring-show 2018 featured the Circus artistrope together with a painting made in the context of Buddhist Vipassana meditation, entanglingmy tactile approach in art, with the text of this thesis.