In recent times, the common tendency towards creating order has arguably pursued an ideological vision that supports an authoritarian presence in social structures and institutions. While a lack of order can lead to an environment of chaos, a fervent insistence on establishing order can create settings that are severely rigid. How is the human propensity towards order problematic in both an individual and collective sense?

The Hungarian collective ‘We didn’t do it! Crew’ (Nem mi voltunk! Crew) identify this tension as they explore personal school experiences that occurred decades ago. These artists, now in their thirties, evoke school as an institutional system where norms are learnt. They establish the classroom as a laboratory, which functions to facilitate the acceptance of top-down power structures from a young age - something that continues to be a source of frustration and anxiety, even as an ‘adult‘. The project RECESS seeks to challenge these through a process of “unlearning” in an attempt to liberate the autonomy of both the individual and collective mind.

RECESS is a process-oriented project by We didn’t do It! Crew between May and June 2018 at Collegium Hungaricum Berlin (CHB). In the project an examination of bad habits comes into play and, in a fictitious school setting, liberation is pursued through playful activities of unlearning. Over the course of one month, the fictitious school offered free-time activities every weekday. The creative process culminated in an interactive exhibition that displayed installations, daily performances and various time-based media artworks in the frame of RULES Festival.

http://nemmivoltunk.blogspot.com/