Unlearning
Authors: 'Variable name' Maryna Marinichenko and Valerie Karpan
Translation from Ukrainian: Viktoriia Grivina
Editor: Clemens Poole
The process of unlearning should be considered in a complex of pragmatic and methodological connections, contextualised by other concepts important for decolonisation of knowledge such as delinking, detachment, decolonial subversion, and decolonial degrowth [1]. Sometimes unlearning is misinterpreted as forgetting and/or rejection. However, for a better understanding of the concept, it is worth taking into account the process of its transfer to the Ukrainian context, because the translation of this term and an attempt to interpret it already serves as an exercise in unlearning [2].
The analysis of decolonial discourses outside the English-speaking tradition makes it possible to identify the challenges associated with unlearning as going beyond the hegemonic systems of scientific knowledge. Ukrainian researcher Maria Sonevytsky describes this process as a transformation of the regime of epistemic imperialism. For instance, in this way it becomes clear that Ukraine still doesn't have powerful allies in the community of researchers working on decolonial theory. This is due to the general dominance of inter-imperial narratives which hinder the analysis of the colonial nature of Russo-Ukrainian relations. As Tereza Hendl notes, the original experience and the system of knowledge of Ukraine are often sidelined, marked as marginal in academic discourses.
The term unlearning was first used in relation to Russian imperialism in the book Learning to Unlearn (2012), in the introduction to which, Madina Tlostanova and Walter Mignolo describe the mechanisms of the establishment of colonial power. However, the researchers limit the geography of unlearning to the Caucasus and Central Asia, so that the south-western border of the Russian Empire, i.e. the modern Eastern European context, remains outside the framework of study. At the same time, the authors stress that Western imperial expansion has become an example for Russian colonial policy, and bypass other strategies of Russian colonialism applied to the Eastern European border, namely, constructing the identity of the colonised as a less valuable variation of the identity of the colonisers. In their text the authors use the concept of unlearning by equating it to forgetting, and suggest building new knowledge on the basis of their own positional experience, 'turning their backs' to the West, i.e. in the geographical sense, to Ukraine as well. This experience of removing Ukraine from the decolonial discourse today allows Walter Mignolo to interpret the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a "successful anti-Western campaign".
Referring to the epistemology of coloniality by Walter Mignolo, Maria Sonevytsky also notes and comments on the failure of the scientists to include Ukraine in the focus of his analysis. The researcher notes that the historical heritage of the Soviet Union is connected with colonial heritage, and characterises Ukraine as a "deep-settler colony" through its relations with Russia and the Soviet Union. The fact that decolonial thinking calls into question the official historical narrative and its subordinate theoretical mode creates prerequisites for the introduction of the concept of unlearning into research paradigms of decolonialism, as it allows for the naming and description of the places where this narrative originates by methods of critical analysis.
The work of decolonisation of knowledge about the culture of Central and Eastern Europe determines the need to revise the canon, as well as rethink the Ukrainian artistic phenomena of the 1970s–1990s. Today, recontextualisation occurs by way of distancing Ukrainian researchers from Russian-oriented approaches in art history and historiography, as well as focusing on local knowledge.
An example is the study of the phenomenon of Odesa Conceptualism, conducted by curator Natalka Revko. Not only does she focus on the analysis of the phenomenon itself, she also resorts to trying to justify its relations with the Moscow artistic environment. Rethinking the existing connections gives the researcher the opportunity to delve into the real reason for Moscow’s attraction as a cultural centre. As Natalka Revko aptly notes in her text for the zine Borderline (2023), Moscow was seen by the Odesa artists as a space that expanded the horizon of potential opportunities to be captured by the gaze of an imaginary West. Thus, internal tension is emphasised by Yuri Leiderman in the performance, If you face the South, Moscow will be far behind (1983), during which he is looking towards the south for a minute, standing with his back to the audience. This metaphorical image highlights the situation of limited communication with Western European countries, the pragmatic solution to which artists saw as migration to Russia. But despite bright artistic and philosophical attempts to change the approaches to interpreting the metropolis–colony relationship in the sphere of culture, the problem remains — Russia is still structurally rooted in academic and art discourse as an exotic Other that absorbs the diversity of cultural practices of countries provincialised by imperial discourse.
In this regard, notable are the practices of the Kharkiv School of Photography (KSOP) — an artistic phenomenon that arose among Kharkiv photographers in the late 1960s. Although the cell was not a school in a classical sense, collaboration, space, values and similarity of stylistic techniques, as well as the emphasis on aesthetic 'blow' [3] give grounds to interpret the community as a school. However, the assessment of KSP as an example of an original Ukrainian artistic phenomenon is complicated by a well-established false association of the work of its representatives with Russian art. In 1987, the book Another Russia. Through the Eyes of the New Soviet Photographers by the Czech theorists Vladimir Remes and Daniela Mrázková was published. The publication, on the one hand, drew attention to KSOP, but on the other, it contributed to the formation of its false identification — in particular, by numerous references that identified representatives of Kharkiv and Lithuania as Russians [4]. At international exhibitions Russians also included KSOP in the heritage of Russian photography [5]. Unlearning the association with Russia as economically more profitable and attractive is possible only if you realise that such acceptance is appropriation rather than recognition. The practice of Ukrainian cultural diplomacy became an act of unlearning — the transfer to the collection of the Pompidou Centre (Paris) of a selection of more than 130 works of the KSOP created during 1970-2010s [6].
Art critic Tatiana Pavlova encourages the unlearning of marking the works of KSP as Moscow/Russian, by revealing the ties between Kharkiv photographers to the current Ukrainian context. For example, Evgeniy Pavlov's works often capture the reactions to political events of the then-Ukrainian Republic (Violin, 1973), and document the evidence of "the darkest periods of Ukrainian history, marked by repressions" (Love series, 1976). The connection with Ukraine can be also traced in the artist’s later works. The hero of the photographic works by KSOP — the Soviet and post-Soviet human — often appears in the now familiar light of double identity and internal resistance of the colonised. In the last years of the Vremia group's activity, the artists actively demonstrated their involvement in the processes of dissociation from Moscow and reflected on this experience, an example of which are, in particular, the works Spitting on Moscow (1994), Varta (1994), and the exhibition Detonation of hippy-end (2000), which included exhibiting the Violin by Pavlov. The art critic Tatiana Pavlova, focusing on the feelings of "disarmament and insecurity" embodied in the photos, contextualises the mood as characteristic of Ukrainian society after the Budapest Memorandum.
Endnotes
02. This term, like many others from the decolonial glossary, doesn't give in too immediate translation, as in order to make "unlearning" possible (which provides for the restructuring of knowledge), one must first receive the knowledge ("learn") and be aware of the conditions of its creation and circulation. Therefore, we propose to proceed from possible interpretations of the term "learning" in the Ukrainian context, in order to better understand what strategy the term unlearning can be opposed to. In a broader sense, learning involves assimilation of information through cognition — direct interaction with what is being studied, and the studies — familiarisation with existing knowledge about a phenomenon indirectly through teaching or educational tools. It is the latter that needs constant calibration and synchronisation with current updates and changes in approaches. In fact, such a renewal is exactly what lies in the basis of the process of unlearning. To unlearn means, if necessary, to discard the old system, knowledge, skill, and develop a new way of thinking or speaking about, and interacting with, certain phenomena. Thus, which Ukrainian equivalent is better capable of covering the essence of this process? At the moment, having considered the possible options for untraining, unlearning, re-learning, re-training and forgetting, unlearning seems to be the most potentially suitable term, as it presupposes not only resistance to the infrastructure of knowledge, but also awareness of one's habitability to certain interpretations of experiences, including at the everyday level. At the same time, we consider the use of unlearning as a synonym in cases when it comes to pedagogical processes in which untraining reflects Jacques Rancière's concept of the ignorant schoolmaster, and denotes the emancipatory potential of alternative forms of learning. To memorise, to drill — not the automatic memorising of something without thoughtful reflexive work, but rather "learning how to unlearn" instead — means the possibility of restructuring of the pedagogical canons.
03. "Blow theory" is a concept developed by KSOP participants. This idea suggests that photography should play the role of an "aesthetic slap in the face" in the audience's perception, to surprise, shock.
04. The book Another Russia: Through the Eyes of the New Soviet Photographers by Mrazkova, Daniela, Vladimir Remes, and Ian Jeffrey (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1986), presented the selected authors of Soviet photography to the Western audience. However, these "other Russians" in the book were mostly Lithuanians and Ukrainians.
05. The Houston Biennale (Contemporary russian Photography, 2012), the exhibition of Russian photography at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (Collection! Contemporary art in the USSR and Russia 1950-2000: a unique gift to the museum, 2017). The latter presented other appropriated artists from the Ukrainian context.
06. Part of the Pompidou collection (Paris) includes the works of KSOP, transferred from the Borys and Tetyana Grynyov collection and MOSKOP, as part of a project to form a Ukrainian collection, initiated by the Ukrainian Club of Contemporary Art Collectors before the full-scale Russian invasion.
For further reference
Hendl, Tereza; Burlyuk, Olga; O’Sullivan, Mila; Arystanbek, Aizada. (En)Countering epistemic imperialism: A critique of “Westsplaining” and coloniality in dominant debates on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Contemporary Security Policy (04 Dec 2023).
Hendl, Tereza. Towards accounting for Russian imperialism and building meaningful 4. transnational feminist solidarity with Ukraine (2022).
Revko Natalia. Borderline (2022).
Sonevytsky, Maria. What is Ukraine? Notes on Epistemic Imperialism (Topos 2 2022), 21-30.
Бернар-Ковальчук Надія «Харківська школа фотографії: гра проти апарату» (Харків: MOKSOP, 2020).
Тетяна Павлова. «Кінець 1960-х — 1980-ті: Час групи «Время»» (2021).
MOKSOP. "moksop.org." Accessed [22.02.2024].
Authors
'Variable name' Maryna Marinichenko and Valerie Karpan
About the authors