Learning in the Wild: Conversations connecting Art and Education
with Prof. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Dr. Irena Chawrilska and Dr. Rick Dolphjin

27 June 2025, 1:30 – 3:00 pm HKT
LE7, Library Extension Building, HKU (Also via Zoom)

Join us for an inspiring seminar that explores the value and perspectives of art in reshaping student learning and engagement. Through three provocative talks from scholar-practitioners followed by a panel discussion, we hope to inspire creative reimaginations of the university classrooms that are multisensory, curiosity-driven, and with a deep attention and care for each other and the world.

To give us a sense of number, please put down your name at this form if you would like to join.

For participants who cannot attend in person at HKU, please use the following Zoom link to join us online.

Zoom link: https://hku.zoom.us/j/93368311777?pwd=IOTzXQpumSMJTGj0rixhbq4IQuUQoa.1
Meeting ID: 933 6831 1777
Password: 339698

All are welcome!

Programme Schedule          

Introduction
Dr Jack Tsao (Associate Director, Common Core, The University of Hong Kong)

Weavings and Waves: University Learning & the Necessity of Art
Prof. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren

In this brief catalyst we will think together about what concepts, sensibilities, materialities, and creative configurations traverse one another in those linked operations called “art” and “learning” in the context of a university. Drawing upon Weavings: Multisensory Performance, Pragmatic Technologies, and Future Readiness—a recent project in India that engaged Deaf, Blind, and Non-Disabled Performers—we will ask how art enlivens the senses, instigates thought, enhances collaboration, and opens toward a more flourishing future.

Sweet and Salty Waters
Dr. Irena Chawrilska

The programme “LOSt in Gdansk!” Sweet and Salty: A Tale of Two Waters offered the chance to explore the resonance between humans and more-than-humans on a local level, prompting a rethink of humanism in line with the Blue Humanities. The coexistence of land, sea, rivers, and lakes that characterises Gdańsk and Pomerania in Poland clearly demonstrates the importance of water as a more-than-human factor in all areas of life, particularly in times of unrest caused by climate change, military conflict, and terrorism. We also examined how art responds to contemporary change. Building on this project, we will explore the role of arts and glocal perspectives in inspiring action for sustainability amidst uncertainty and insecurity.

“The Earth is Thinking All Along…”: Doing Philosophy in the Museum, into the Wild
Dr. Rick Dolphjin

In 1985, French philosopher Jean Francois Lyotard famously set up a major exhibition in the Centre Pompidou in Paris in which he translated his philosophy of technology into an exhibition (Les Immatériaux), because for him, it was the best way to imagine the world to come otherwise. Today, thinking about ecology, about the more-than-human world, cannot be limited to the boundaries of University either. Involving the arts and fieldwork allows us to broaden our perspectives and thus enrich our thinking, creativity, and involvement with all that matters. Drawing on an exhibition that will open in November 2025 in Skopje (entitled the Earth is Thinking All Along…) and on new European research projects-in-the-making, my aim is to explore what we can possible learn from engaging with the landscape, with the earth, and question our Humanist prejudices while we engage with the world around us.

Panel Discussion and Q&A

Speaker Biographies

Prof. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren
Gray is Honorary Professor of the Humanities at the University of Hong, where from 2014-2022 he was Professor & Director of the Common Core. In 2023 Gray co-founded Wild Studios Consulting & Creative Productions and in 2025-26 he will serve as an Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama: Huntsville. He is the author, most recently, of Pintxos: Small Delicacies and Chance Encounters and the lead editor for Transdisciplinary Experiments: Research, Teaching, and Institutionalisation (UCL Press, forthcoming).

Dr. Irena Chawrilska
Irena is the Director of the Academic Center for Polish Language and Culture and coordinator of the More-than-Human Studies Lab at the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Gdansk, Poland. She has been visiting scholar at Utrecht University and the University of Toronto and is the author of three books. Her research focuses on environmental humanities, philosophy of land (especially wetlands), hybridity, and experimental literature.

Dr. Rick Dolphjin
Rick is a writer, educator, and curator, serving as an Associate Professor at Media and Culture Studies, Humanities, Utrecht University. He publishes widely on continental philosophy (Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres) and the contemporary arts. He research focus is on posthumanism, new materialism, material culture (food studies), and ecology.