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2.9.2018 | KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not #32: School of Anxiety: Autopoiesis, Entropy or Redundancy and Other Terms

Book launch and discussion with Awuor Onyango, Nyakallo Maleke, Sanyu Kiyimba-Kisaka, and Serubiri Moses

The School of Anxiety (SoA) is an unteaching environment focusing on subjective anxieties. SoA is based on processes of learning and exchanging ideas. The project includes members Awuor Onyango from Kenya, Nyakallo Maleke from South Africa, Sanyu Kiyimba Kisaka from Uganda, and 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art curatorial team member Serubiri Moses from Uganda, who initiated the project.

SoA has taken the form of workshops, excursions, a panel discussion, and performances in Johannesburg, ZA, in September 2017 and Nairobi, KE, in February 2018. For the Berlin, DE, iteration in September 2018, SoA members will present a publication project under the title School of Anxiety: Autopoiesis, Entropy, Redundancy or Other Terms, moderated by Serubiri Moses.

On the upcoming publication project, SoA members said:

"This particular writing process has provided us with a space to unburden ourselves; we’ve dedicated our time to speaking our truth—through various writing approaches of our choosing. With this being said, we’re opening our souls and baring our vulnerability. It’s not a bad thing. That’s the interesting thing about us, we feel. It’s normal, it’s a human characteristic."

"The proposal that we drafted was created with the intention of narrating a collective, individual, social, political, historical, and psychological history of anxieties—the list goes on. Certainly the conversations in this publication will be transformed once we’ve compiled everything. With that said, this could be one of the stages towards some kind of healing. If it’s not obtained here, then maybe it’ll begin after it’s printed and even after the 'Berlin' cloud has subsided."

"If the publication is like an encyclopedia of anxiety, then that’s what it is. If it’s a publication that is supposed to evoke non-ending anxiety even when we seek closure— then that’s what it is. But we note that our publication is not an attack; we imagine it as an attempt at some kind of resistance. It’s not a publication that paints us as victims, but as victors. It’s clearly not a piece that says we need saving (maybe a little), though it’s a piece that could potentially symbolize a transitioning of sorts. Perhaps… it’s just a thought."


The publication project School of Anxiety: Autopoiesis, Entropy or Redundancy and Other Terms is now available as a digital download here.