F-ACTIVITIES | WORKSHOP DESIGN | HEUTAGOGY
Exformative action as a workshop design and facilitation principle
(the art of mostly “tai” and unpredictable “yu”)
in: Resourceful Exformation, 2020
exformation
The idea of exformation was first coined by Tor Nørretranders (The User Illusion, 1998), referring to information withheld by design. The Japanese designer and educator Kenya Hara transformed exformation into a product design principle, redefining the concept as a communication method by making things unknown (Ex-formation, 2015).
For me, exformation is the end (the ex) of formation. All the way since my student years, I have been experimenting with a pedagogy that exists outside the realm of formation and in-formation. A new approach to learning, where students, instead of shaping their minds to the folds required by hierarchically predefined standards, deconstruct forms and shapes of what we already know, and shatter them, allowing space for new ideas and new meanings.
