The New Academy
Curriculum for Change
What would a (cognitive) city look like if it were designed by all its citizens? The New Academy, an initiative of the Nieuwe Instituut in collaboration with philosopher Rosi Braidotti, reimagines Rotterdam as a knowledge city. Rotterdam can be regarded as a rich archive of living knowledge, only a fraction of which is visible and utilised.
It is a local and collective initiative to turn diffuse and minority knowledge produced, developed, and displayed in Rotterdam into a new type of training programme that engages the city’s many formal and informal institutions, community organisations, and bottom-up activities. The Curriculum is a long-term project and focuses on recogniszing, valuing, and sharing this knowledge. It aims to create an alliance of knowledge producers in Rotterdam who contribute to an inclusive, just and resilient city. It aims to create a more connected and complex idea of Rotterdam as a city of knowledge where all inhabitants of Rotterdam are acknowledged and included in shaping an equitable future for the city.
The Curriculum for Change combines different knowledges: embodied and lived knowledge, artistic knowledge, more-than-human knowledge, practical everyday knowledge, theoretical knowledge, ethnically diverse knowledge and knowledge derived from stories of numerous diasporas. It encourages curiosity, confidence, trust and humility. It teaches skills such as watching, listening, connecting, resilience, and community development. It takes place in all sorts of places in the city – from community centres to gardens, auditoriums to dance halls, streets to plazas, construction sites to rivers. It is for designers, policymakers and officials, and for residents who want to engage with issues in their own living and working environment.