About

Sisters Academy is a school in a world and society where the sensuous and poetic mode of being is at the center of all action and interaction. It defines the primary mode of being and is the values on which all societal institutions are building – including the school. Thus Sisters Academy is the school in what we term a Sensuous society – A potential new world arising from the post-economical and ecological crisis. Between 2014-2024 Sisters Academy will manifest in a series of Nordic countries and potentially beyond as we create otherworldly boarding schools and take over the leadership of a series of actual upper secondary schools:

>> HF & VUC, Fyn, FLOW, Odense (DK) _

>> Nova Academy, Simrishamn, in collaboration with Inkonst (SE)

>> Myndlistaskolínn, Reykjavík, in collaboration with Iceland Academy of the Arts (IS)

>> Sisters Academy at Nuuk Art Museum, with Artuafik, Nuuk, as part of The North Atlantic Cluster, PSi #19 (GL)

>> Fremtidslinjen (STU-school), Køge (DK)

Sisters Academy is equally rooted in performance art, research, pedagogy and activism. For a more in-depth description see Research. Also see articles and press here. Here-within a dialogue between Ass. Prof. Ida Krøgholt, Arts, AAU and The Sisters here and an extended selection of articles on the work of Sisters Hope here.

The two large-scale formats that we are currently exploring:

The Takeover

In the Takeover we take over the leadership of a series of actual upper secondary schools. We transform the school completely in an immersive landscape of light-, sound- and set-design. The Sister and staff moves in as the new ‘Head Mistress’ and as strange enchanting new colleagues. The teachers at the school are now facilitated to work from the performative premise that they are now teachers at a school based on aesthetic principles – If the aesthetic dimension was governing society and not the economic and if tactile perception was valued as highly as the rational then how would you teach? – Is the question – All to evoke sensuous learning innovations. Math might start by an exercise on ‘how to sense Pi’, History might be initiated by sharing the dreams of the night to explore collective unconscious patterns. Thus, Sisters Academy is not only emphasizing and amplifying the value of the creative subject fields on upper secondary school level, but even more radical these are fundamental to all other subject fields, thus, the project also seek to have an actual political impact on the educational system.

The Boarding School

In the Boarding School we create a boarding school as a large-scale immersive performance-installation where everyone with interest in the agenda can enroll as students to explore new modes of sensuous learning with the ‘Sisters teaching staff’. This format also involves residencies by visiting researchers, teachers and artists setting up their research laboratories within the overall framework of the boarding school to explore the sensuous aspects of their practice, daily school excursions by real upper secondary school classes and seminars and concerts curated by the respective staff of the co-producing institution. The latest Boarding School unfolded in Copenhagen, Fall 2017, in collaboration with Den Frie as winner of the Exhibition Prize VISION by The Bikuben Foundation. For more info go here.

About Sisters Hope

Sisters Hope is a Copenhagen-based performance-group and movement with an associated international troupe of performers from various backgrounds. Sisters Hope operate in the intersection of performance art, research, activism and pedagogy. The draw on immersion and intervention when they manifest on the stages of everyday life and beyond aiming at democratizing and unfolding the aesthetic dimension. Especially focusing on educational contexts as in the on-going large-scale project Sisters Academy. Sisters Hope is led by Gry Worre Hallberg who co-founded the group with her poetic twin sister Anna Lawaetz in 2007.

The method draw on immersive, interactive and interventionist performance art strategies. The method is immersive in the sense that a whole school is being immersed into a otherworldly place that activate the senses and allow us to think and feel radically different from everyday life. The method is interactive in the sense, that once you are at the school, you are perceived as a student or teacher or guest of Sisters Academy and The Sisters and performance staff of the group will engage with you in this sense. You leave your everyday persona to explore your potential poetic self while investigating how we can evoke and activate the senses and emotions to deepen the learning experience. And the method is interventionist in the sense that the group will often intervene into everyday life contexts using art to argue the need for the aesthetic dimension to be an integrated part of everyday life – Not as something exclusive and autonomous. In that way it is a performance artistic approach with a very articulated social agenda.

Contact Sisters Hope

Kindreds