P021 → School of Magical Politics
The School of Magical Politics is a collective research led by Eszter Némethi into the narrative construction of society and play, games and poetry as possible sites for modeling political alternatives, different modes of being together. The aim of the school is both to imagine and model ways of a being together (politics), that takes into consideration the messy complexity of margins and the uncertainty that lies beyond the horizon – while also engaging critically with the inherent dangers of emergent narrative spaces that are in flux.
*magical
*magical here is understood as a border zone, a site of possible narrative-shift within reality (things can become other things, things can disappear) it is also always related to the horizon, the unknown and un-seeable.
The School of Magical Politics is in this sense a spatial practice, identifying and revealing (European) cartographies of magic through play and storytelling. The goal is to play and imagine ‘impossible politics’ in contact with diverse communities of place and practice – thinking and doing alongside but apart, with activism and critical pedagogy.
poetic intelligence
The School of Magical Politics is interested in the playful development of a poetic intelligence that can disrupt powers that impose on, smooth over, restrict access to or perpetuate a chaos inside the narrative landscape of our being together.
participatory-performance based research
Through a method of participatory performance-based research the aim is to investigate the magical of our political imaginaries and to develop strategies for the documentation and performance of these collective knowledges, stories and fictions.
fieldworks and long-term participatory projects exploring play and other aspects of the research in concrete settings are included in pink
Manifesto for Political Magic
performance lecture at PAF
Mapping magic
artwork and brainmap
2019 @ Spare Room [IRL]
How to Build a Playground?
intergenerational workshop
2021 @ Kaaitheater [BE] / online
Theatre for the Children of the Future
resiency and collaboration with Satchit Puranik, Pranav Patadiya, Anitha Santhanam
2021 @ Living Commons [BE]
School of Magical Politics
residency at the Living Commons with mentorship of Dr. Eve Olney
2021 @ Budapest [HU]
Learning about sociologies of Magical Realism from Blaha Lujza square
research days with Anna Végh
2021 @ wpZimmer / TOPOS II [BE]
How To Be Together
collective residency led by Chiara Organtini and with oracle, Katinka de Jonge, Julia Rubies Subiros &
2021 @ Hungarian Theatre and Film Department at Babes-Bolyai University [RO]
School of Magical Politics
three day collective research workshop on the streets of Cluj/Kolozsvár with 20 undergraduate and master level students of the Hungarian theatre department
2022 @ Living Commons [IRL] / Chikka Dodda Art Lab [IND] / St. Columba’s National School [IRL]
Mythmakers
development of an online version of the conversational card-game for children together with St.Columba’s National school 5th year students and Satchit Puranik, Pranav Patadiya, Eve Olney and Felix Jackson
2022 @ wpZimmer [BE]
School of Magical Politics
residency & performative interviews and development of a method of documentation and recall
2022/23 @ Cork Midsummer Festival [IRL] / BE PART [EU]
To Be What We Are
fieldwork of the BE PART network and 15 month residency working with Traveller children and their adults in the north of Cork. In collaboration with Claire Murphy and the Groups the work resulted in a multimedia installation, a short film and a publication about the play-based methodology
oral documentation & maps
Performative Interviews
45 minute one-on-one conversations with ‘experts’ about play, politics, storytelling, pedagogy and the magical based on some key questions of the research and the tactile textile memory maps.
These maps hold the memory archive of the school.
Playgrounds
research and collaborative settings exploring the construction, rules, politics and possibilities of playgrounds and their potential for collective negotiation of (public) space.
These playgrounds allow for active/imprecise modeling of the research
Conversations & Collective writing practices
Site-sensitive collective reading and writing practices, often in public space around different models of the *magical.
These scores often invite the environment and/or the collective body as expert.
Invocation of the School
An improvised 20 min performance lecture and a following coversation. It is an invocation of the research of School of Magical Politics, using the maps, and memories of conversations 'encoded' within them I first weave connections and trajectories within the research.
This invocation opens ‘the school’ and a discussion with the audience.
Maps and mapping
Mapping as both sense making and memory practice - a search for a non language, visual and tactile documentation. The maps within the practice range in styles and materials.
These maps form the base of other performative actions and in a sense hold the the school within them.
Collaboration with children
more a principal then a performative element. this collaboratoin is key to the research and recognises children as acutely critical and particulary well positioned experts with a practical understanding of pedagogy, power, play, storytelling and also the *magical.
While the research overall hopes to address adults, it owes a lot to learning to listen to collaborating children.
Sina Seifee, Eve Olney, Anna Végh, Deirdre O’Regan, Joan Somers Donnelly, Marcelo Alves, Katalina Gladka, Gosie Verloessem, Satchit Puranik, Anitha Santhanam, Pranav Patadiya, Claire Murphy, Sophie Hope, Maeve McCarthy, Ann Stokes, Helen O’Reilly, Susan Holland, Klara Cserne
and
Funders & supporters of the research
a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies), Arts Council Ireland - Arts Participation Bursary Award, wpZimmer, Living Commons, Babes-Bolyai University, Green Corridor, GC De Zeyp - N22 & KWP
Mythmakers
Kaaitheater, Arts Council Ireland, Living Commons, St. Columba’s National School, Chikka Dodda Arts Lab, Art Basics for Children
To Be What We Are
Creative Europe, Arts Council Ireland, Cork City Council, Cork Midsummer Festival, TUSLA, Springboard Family Project, Cork City Partnership, BE PART - Art Beyond Participation Network
card from the performative card game Mythmakers - design by Felix Jackson
workshop moment from the To Be What We Are project - photo: Deirdre O’Regan