Linda Zeb Hang
The Microcosmicroom, film still-1, 2023
Collaborative Exhibition Scenography with Goof Kloosterman

Ultradependent Public School is a curriculum to learn what we really need to enact the worlds we really want. UPS is co-convened with an extended faculty of students, educators, and practitioners. Emphasizing study as a radically collective, public labor that lives in-between institutionalized hierarchies, UPS inhabits the edges between formal classrooms and everyday life. It navigates  kitchens, print shops, housing squats, community centers, garages, radio stations, hallways, and sidewalks as sites of study.  

For two months in April–May 2023, UPS transforms BAK into a schoolhouse with distinct study areas: a gymnasium, a copybar, a bootleg library, a gift hall, a microcosmicroom, and a cafeteria. Sixteen artworks as learning objects are located here and around the city of Utrecht, activated by an intensive public program of trainings. Symposiums, rituals, field recordings, workshops, day-long radio shows, lectures, skill-shares, assemblies, bootleg distros, beauty salons, and cook-offs are only some of the ways UPS configures the act of training.  

There is a concrete material kinship between the learning objects that form this project’s physical landscape: paper, the ultimate school supply. As any teacher or student working in precarious contexts will confirm: as long as you have paper, a surface on which to record and transfer knowledge, you have a classroom. Inside BAK as a temporary schoolhouse, paper and its archival and circulatory afterlife is handled by individuals, collectives, and totally new pairings for whom publishing (or making public) is an artistic practice for building community. 

Ultradependent Public School is assembled by Clara Balaguer—curator of BAK’s civic praxis program—Jeanne van Heeswijk, and an extended network of collaborators including: 

Alejandro Navarrete, Alfred Marasigan, Alice Strete (Varia/Fizz/Magiun), Andrea González, Angeliki Diakrousi, b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN (Berend Bombarius, Grace Lostia, Jun Saturay, and others), Bea Misa-Crisostomo (ritual dumaguete), Black Book Assembly, Black Earth Events, BB Workshop at Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut (Gersande Schellinx, Miquel Hervás Gómez, Ott Metusala), Carla Arcos, Cengiz Mengüç (Anadolu Ekspres), Charley Ranzijn, Clara Balaguer, Coopia, Czar Kristoff, Dante Carlos, Eindhoven University Rebellion, Elaine W. Ho, Embodied Theory Assembly (Khurram Saleem, Kiek Korevaar, Rita Sousa), Erasmus School of Colour, Escuela de Garaje (Santiago Pinyol), Espacio Estamos Bien (Francisca Khamis Giacoman, Mariana Jurado Rico), Gabriel Fontana, Glenda Martinus, Harriet Rose Morley, Hong Kong-Mainland Relationship Repairment Study Group, Hopscotch Reading Room (Erin Honeycutt, siddhartha lokanandi), Hussein Shikha, Ita Fatia Nadia, James Rae Parnell, Jason Dy, SJ, Jeanine van Berkel, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Jen/Eleana Hofer, Jina Collective, Jo-Anneke van der Molen, Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano (Espacio Comunal), Julia Wilhelm, Khairunnisa, KUNCI Study Forum and Collective (Fiky Daulay, Gatari Surya Kusuma, Syafiatudina with School of Improper Education), Lila Athanasiadou, Lina Ruiz (Micelio Cultural), Linda Zeb Hang, Lorenzo García-Andrade Llamas, Lucrative Dumpster Dive, lumbung Radio, Maja Irene Bolier, Maria Molteni, Marina Monsonís (La Cuina del Macba), Massa Madre’s Orchard, Mokum Kraakt, Pablo Marte, Paul Pfeiffer, Public Sewer, Publifluor (David Le Simple, Femke Snelting, Ludivine Loiseau, Nathan Izbicki, Olivier Bertrand, Pierre Huyghebaert, Sophie Boiron), REDACTED NAMES, Renan Laru-an, Repelsteeltje, Sadrie Alves, Sandra Lange, Sean van den Steenhoven, Senka Milutinović (Reading Rhythms Club), Sergio Rojas Chaves, Sjaak, SPIN, Staci Bu Shea, Stevphen Shukaitis, Stranded FM (Jolijt Bosch, Luke Cohlen), Teresa Borasino, The Garden Department, Thomas Orbon, Tools for the Times, Trash Bunker, Triwish Hanoeman, Ulises (Gee Wesley, Kayla Romberger, Lauren Downing, Nerissa Cooney, Ricky Yanas), Utrecht in Solidarity with Palestine, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan, Wan Ing Que, and more.