Emily Hale

The Unexpected Beautiful Phrase was a one day event which took place on 4 May 2019 at Nottingham Contemporary, which sought to articulate the tactics of a fugitive learning through a drop-in series of performative gestures. The fugitive, propose Stefano Harney and Fred Moten in ‘The University and the Undercommons’, occupies a space of perpetual contradiction, simultaneously within and beyond the institution: ‘on the stroll of the stolen life’, yet reliant on the institution as a place from which to steal.

Featuring performance, readings, sound and video works, this event asks: how can we be fugitive within the constraints of traditional educational models? How can illegibility generate new and disruptive vocabularies? What role does the body play in (un)learning?

This day-long programme included responses from the artists Rosa Johan Uddoh, Christopher Kirubi, Raju Rage, Holly Pester, Jules Sturm, Dorine van Meel, Department for International Dance Development (DIDD), and a film screening by Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman.