Unlearning Extractivist Thinking: Instituting Pedagogical Practices of Radical Reciprocity at Kunstinstituut Melly

Abstract

In the Western contemporary cultural milieu, decolonisation has emerged as a cornerstone of the struggle against institutional racism. But what is the praxis of instituting social justice and social change? In this scholarly inquiry, I explore the implications that arise when institutional transformation is conceptualised as a radically reciprocal and pedagogically-oriented process. By integrating decolonial, feminist, and curatorial studies perspectives, I challenge the often ‘non-performative’ (Ahmed, 2012) nature of institutional commitments to the social justice project, positing ‘extractivism’ (Junka-Aikio and Cortes-Severino, 2017) as the exploitative logic dominating these discursive practices. Drawing on insights from Indigenous scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s ‘Radical Resurgent Theory’ (2017), I investigate the affordances of ‘radical reciprocity’ as a non-extractivist ethical system and driving imperative for art instituting, one where institutional discourse and praxis deeply inform one another. My analysis focuses on the Name Change Initiative (NCI) – the transformative journey undertaken by Rotterdam-based contemporary art organisation Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art) in 2018. This initiative was catalysed by the Open Letter to Witte de With (2017), which called attention to the organisation’s colonial infrastructure and associated ‘institutional whiteness’ (Ahmed, 2007), urging a systemic renewal of its working culture. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of specific documents produced by the institution and its close collaborators and compiled into the edited volume Tools for Collective Learning (Cuy et al., 2022), I delve into some of the politics and practices implemented within the curatorial framework of the NCI. My research aim is to ascertain whether the institutional renaming symbolically embodies the reciprocity-driven ethical principles (accountability, mutuality, and vulnerability) cultivated through the practice of the pedagogical model delineated by decolonial thinker Rolando Vázquez in the aforementioned volume (ibid.). I conclude by advocating for a radically reciprocal mode of art instituting, maintaining the generative potential of reciprocal ethics and pedagogies as tools to unlearn extractivist working precepts and advance towards a decolonised institutional ethos.