Where’s Class?

Today, more than ever, we learn by going online. While distance education has been around for decades, the internet now takes us to class in just a few clicks. At the same time, many important lessons are learned by gathering together as a group. Where’s Class? shifts focus to the offline experience of attending class in order to capture the collective aspect embedded in getting an education. We do not learn alone but amongst others, exchanging glances, passing notes, making plans, and waiting for what comes next. Through these interactions and interstitial moments, behaviours are modulated, identities are imagined, and relationships are formed.

Drawing on a selection of photographs, drawings, publications, and documents from the CCA collection, Where’s Class? offers a series of annotations on spaces designed specifically for collective learning experiences. Using the classroom as a point of departure, the exhibition identifies an array of approaches supporting student life, such as Cornelia Hahn Oberlander’s plea for playgrounds in early childhood education, Aldo Rossi’s vision of elementary schools as the theatre of life, and Cedric Price’s proposal for a mobile university for the post-industrial countryside. In turn, each of these approaches offers a perspective on what it means to learn amongst a fellow group of students.

This project is the result of a conversation between Corinna Anderson, Albert Ferré, Megan Marin, Federico Ortiz, and Yuma Shinohara.
Graphic design: Louise Paradis, Montreal