Teaching and Learning Lab:
Decolonizing Curricula
What Does Decolonizing the Curriculum Entail?
EXPOSING AND CRITIQUING THE HIDDEN POWER DYNAMICS IN CANONIZED OR GENERALLY ACCEPTED FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS OF SEEING THE WORLD
Stanley Wolukau Wanambwa, Assistant Professor, Photography
“Growing up as a black person in a white country you learn a lot about how people perceive one another and how perception informs and legitimates action. So it makes sense that I became interested in a medium that continually re-poses the question of how you confirm a judgment or justify a course of action when a relative and partial perception of something is taken as absolute fact.”
Resources:
EXPANDING AND DIVERSIFYING THE CANON SO AS TO INCLUDE TRADITIONS THAT HAVE BEEN SILENCED OR MARGINALIZED
Ramon Tejada, Assistant Professor, Graphic Design
“As a designer, I have come to terms with the fact that what and who design history has been interested in canonizing, up to this point, does not reflect me, my cultures, my values, and many of the tenets that make me a citizen, a designer, and a teacher.”
Paula Gaetano Adi, QuinchaBot Prototype from Mestizo Robotics
“Let us begin, then, by making a new life and a new science. If we do not first liberate the spirit, we shall never be able to redeem matter.”— José Vaconcelos. The Cosmic Race (1925)