School of Reparar

The continued artistic-political training and research-creation programme of/with the Modus Operandi AND 

Positioning itself within a paradoxical and urgent task, between the irreparability of the world-as-it-is and the commitment to repair, the School of Reparar*** is a continued artistic-political program, with annual thematic editions, dedicated to the collective and durational dwelling of the driving question of the Modus Operandi AND - how to repair the Irreparable? - and research into ethical, somatic and ritual practices for reconnecting with the sensitive experience of inseparability and the collective exercise of caring for the common.

The School of Reparar emerges from the desire to contribute to a process of caring-curating other possible sensory-perceptive and existential ecologies, based on reciprocity, from the recognition that it is no longer possible to reiterate ways of life that reproduce predatory-extractivist logics of plunder, consumption, accumulation and disposal, reiterate systemic violence and aggravate the separation and indifference manifested in the constant affective loop of helplessness and disenchantment. 

By proposing a school that is multi-localized, transversal and based on practiced knowledge, connecting realities and bodies that are diversely affected by the Irreparable, we intend to create a space-time dedicated to collectivizing the act of researching-creating, making it coincide with the acts of living-dwelling and relating-performing. A space of in-betweeness - of reciprocally holding and supporting each other in community - in which we can exercise ways of not-knowing together and being intimate in/with difference, nurturing possibilities of reshaping sensibilities and worlds.

By claiming that such a space can be a school, we also reclaim the possibility of repairing this device, which historically operates (con)formation, working on its strength as a field of (un)learning and trans-form-action.

***MO_AND proposes exercising a triple modulation of presencem, which are embedded in the Portuguese word Reparar: stopping again suspending reactivity (re-parar); practicing a distributed and fractalized attention (reparagem); sustained caring and curating (reparação).

The School of Reparar is made up of three lines-interfaces in relation to the Modus Operandi AND: hANDling, (under)stANDing and LANDscape. These three lines intertwine and combine in different ways in the composition of an annual program structured around two main axes: the Continued Axis and the Nomad Axis.

CONTINUED AXIS

The Continued School of Reparar lasts a total of 6 months and takes place once a year in Portugal, between April and September, at the AND Lab Space in Lisbon and at the Trust Collective, in the village of Barril de Alva (Arganil, Beira Interior). It offers 3 types of participation: full, single or as a resident artist. 

Full participation involves attending a continuous course between April (or, in some years, May) and July, which begins with an intensive hANDling module, unfolds into an extensive hANDling module and ends with a LANDscape retreat. 

Single participation allows you to attend only the initial intensive hANDling module (usually in April; in some years in May) or only the final LANDscape retreat (July).

Participation as a Resident Artist takes place between April (or, in some years, May) and September, adding another layer of work to the integral continuous path (intensive and extensive hANDling + LANDscape retreat), as part of the (under)stANDing line, which admits up to 3 artists per year to work on an individual creation linked to the theme-issue of the year, with guidance and accompaniment from Fernanda Eugenio between April/May and September and a final presentation in September. 

The Continued School of Reparar has a regular calendar and opens new registrations every year, in the 3 types of participation. 

NOMAD AXIS

The Nomad School of Reparar takes the 3 lines-interfaces that make up the program - hANDling, (under)stANDing and LANDscape - to different geographies and contexts, seeking both to nurture and sustain links with the multi-localized network of practitioners of the Modus Operandi AND, which spreads across several cities/countries, and to open up new fronts of contact by spreading to new territories. It has a variable calendar each year, offering workshops/laboratories and experiences/retreats in a flexible and emerging program, made up of initiatives that take place in different cities and countries each year, both in national and international circulation. This is the School's itinerant dimension, encompassing both modules co-produced by AND Lab with different (inter)national partners and modules carried out at the invitation of other structures and included in their programming, as well as initiatives proposed by AND Lab's local clusters in different countries.  

The Nomad School of Reparar is spread over the 12 months of the year and registration is open for each module individually.  

THE LINES-INTERFACES hANDling, (under)stANDing and LANDscape

The hANDling line-interface focuses on the (trans)formative and sharing dimension of MO_AND as a tool for mediation and composition. It offers intensive and extensive workshops for transmitting and practicing the constellation of games and concept-tools of the Modus Operandi AND. The name hANDling summons up the semantic stain of the verb 'to handle' to signal a double commitment: on one side, to the ethics of handling, as opposed to manipulation, which guides the Modus Operandi AND; on the other side, to the giving/offering of our tools, creating transmission-sharing situations that favor their incorporation through attendance, practice and the cultivation of each practitioner's autonomy and singularity.

The (under)stANDing line-interface forms a continuous plan of research and creation with the Modus Operandi AND, in which the tool folds in on itself, starting from a theme-issue each year, thus sustaining itself as a living organism in constant (re)formulation. It has an internal scope and opens up to outside participation in two ways: through the Resident Artists in Creation sub-program and through the sporadic offer of workshops/laboratories that share new tools and practices under construction, as well as ongoing research at the broader level of the AND Collective or the MO_AND Collaborative Projects. The name (under)stANDing points to a way of investigating-creating that deviates from interpretation and representation, committing itself to direct experience, sustaining non-knowledge and tuning in to embodied wisdoms, beyond the human illusion of point of view.

The LANDscape line-interface focuses on the dimension of individual and collective (self)repair through the creation of ritual experiences in retreat mode. Built in the form of a trans-form-action journey, in which the Modus Operandi AND is multiplied into a set of more complex embodied somatic and political-affective propositions, the LANDscape retreats summons different modulations of the AND constellation, side by side with ritual-pieces specially created, each time, to provide a sensitive and experiential approach to the theme-issue.

LANDscape are thus hybrid objects, between the durational participatory ritual play and the immersive course.  They take place in locations close to nature, in order to find conditions of stillness and contour conducive to a work of re-membering the sense of inseparability - as a political gesture of care, but also of rediscovering an embodied sense of power-agency and responsibility.

Each LANDscape is unrepeatable, taking on a unique dramaturgy each time, combining different performative-transformative experiences in a single journey. They seek to (re)activate co-sensing through intensive coexistence (sleeping/eating together, walks, immersive living, etc.) and (re)approaching a more-than-human biodiversity, leading participants on an intimate-collective journey of ex-conjuration of the Irreparable.