Spring School Programme: Léann Herlihy presents Hedge School

Recognising that the criteria used to classify curricula will always be insufficient, Hedge School disrupts the western fixation on fixity, and thus, this school’s syllabus is in a constant state of reform. Participants of Hedge School will attend one session a week over a four week period. Hedge School is part of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios’ learning and public engagement Spring School Programme.

Hedge School takes influence from the unfixed, ephemeral and fleeting existence of hedge schools during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Ireland. Emerging as an act of resistance to the Cromwellian regime and continuing under the Penal Laws, hedge schools were alternative modes of education for young people of non-conforming faith. As the name suggests, hedge school or scoil scairte, initially took place in sheltered areas of hedgerow, however, as knowledge of their outlaw existence progressed, so did their transitory state of being; convening in more inconspicuous spaces such as houses and barns. Illegal in all manners, this pedagogical discourse was independent of institutions and ultimately, provided evidence of the transformative potential of EDUCATIONAL ANARCHY.

Similar to the scoileanna scairte of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hedge School centres the ever-evolving identity of the ‘non-conformer’ to offer alternative insights to (re)imagining new, just, and sustainable ways of living. Intervening in the gaps in the system-that-said-it-had-no-gaps – or at least pretended not to – Hedge School will use the tools provided by ecological, socialist and abolitionist coalitions to collectively (re)build a transdisciplinary toolkit in which more equitable worlds will not only be imagined, but sustained.

Hedge School takes place in TBG+S every Tuesday evening, 6.00pm to 7:30pm, over four weeks from 14 March - 04 April 2023. The programme is free of charge and open to adults. We recommend that applicants read through the Hedge School schedule before applying, available to download below.

For full details of each session, guest facilitators and course schedule please download the PDF.

Experience

Hedge School does not believe in traditional forms of education, but rather explores shared learning through horizontal collectivism wherein each individual's contribution is of equal importance in the entity of the collective group. In other words, there won’t be any teacher’s pet here!

Throughout the four weeks, we will discuss a range of theoretical discourses and apply these frameworks onto collective-movement, -making and -writing. With this in mind, it would be beneficial for participants to have an interest in ecological, socialist and/or abolitionist discourses.

There will be some suggested activities and prompts between sessions. Access to a smartphone or laptop is useful but not necessary – we can work to your needs! You will be asked to bring some items to Hedge School, but only things that you already have. There is no experience needed within a traditional art frame, but rather a willingness and openness to share space, time and respect with other individuals.

Access

With an optimum focus on thriving through your experience, please do not hesitate to contact the artist or TBG+S team with any access needs or desires that you may have.

For general information on Temple Bar Gallery + Studios’ accessibility, click here.

In order to facilitate a safe environment for all participants, these will be fully masked workshops. If this clashes with your access needs, please do not hesitate to contact the artist.

Image

Image Credits: Léann Herlihy, Hedge School (2022), hand-poked tattoo, 21 x 12 cm

Tattoo designed and poked by Peter McAteer @peat.eater

Photographed by Niamh Barry @narryphotographyvids

Image Description: Léann, a white person with a dark brown mullet, shows off their bare back which is decorated with a stick-and-poke tattoo. The tattoo depicts a hedge school; a teacher-figure wearing a billowing cloak with long dark hair is holding a book and teaching a lesson to four young people nestled in a hedgerow.