(Anti-)Foundational Archives: Three Stories on Plunder, Restitution and the Commons

The formations of archives in the West are intimately entangled with the history of colonial plunder. If the act of looting is foundational to archival collections and the forms of knowledge they reproduce, what new foundations (or anti-foundations) do we need to build as a basis for constructing alternative and emancipatory pedagogies? This short talk is comprised of three scenes which act as fragmentary prompts to think about what foundational archives of education in art and design might look like from the vantage point of different geopolitical locales. Set in London, Kinshasa and Palestine, these scenes emerge from my engagement with each place in my various roles as researcher, editor and educator.