In The Majority Never has Right on its Side, the Swedish artist Emanuel Almborg brings Summerhill - a utopisch altruistic school concept - into relation to the image that has been created of this particular school down through its history. Almborg dives into the school's visual history and investigates what can be described as the 'utopisch image'. How is this image constructed? What are its potential pitfalls?
It is a school where every pupil can individually decide when playtime begins and ends, a school that believes in every child's fundamental goodness and desire to learn. It holds personal development far higher than academic performance, is a school in which each voice is democratic and weighs in equally with all the others, be it that of a six-year-old or school director. It seems utopian, but these are the fundamental educational principles of Summerhill School, an English anti-authoritarian school founded in 1921 by writer and educator A.S. Neill.
In The Majority Never has Right on its Side, the Swedish artist Emanuel Almborg brings Summerhill today – nearly a century after it was founded – into relation to the image that has been created of the school down through its history. Almborg dives into the school's visual history and investigates what can be described as the 'utopic image'. How is this image constructed? What are its potential pitfalls?
By bringing images from the past together with images from today, the viewer has a new, more subtly nuanced insight into the so-called ‘free school’. Where does the freedom of the individual begin and end within a community, and are there downsides to this democratic coin?
EN spoken
SE, 2013, 40 min
Collective Screening Session with an introduction and delicious finger food: 26/10/2016 at 20:00
