Not-knowing as a Shared Space (2001- ): 2025 Tavi redux, with Ragnar Thomas

KINGS Artist-Run and un Projects are pleased to invite you to a KINGS Emerging Writers Program Workshop, A Constructed World’s ‘Not-knowing as a Shared Space’ (2001– ): 2025 Tavi redux, with Ragnar Thomas.

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The workshop will begin at 4:00pm sharp and run until 8:10pm at KINGS Artist-Run (69 Capel Street, West Melbourne, 3000).

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"One similarity for psychoanalysis and contemporary culture is that no one really wants it. No one really wants their paradigms or boundaries changed, and most people only enter if the alternatives are insufferable. In many cases the analyst, like the artist, doesn’t-know what the outcome will be, and is obliged by ethical demands not to control events or outcomes... Culture is a collective talking cure that can be undertaken together. We don’t-know yet what we want to say or what will happen..."

— A Constructed World, Not-knowing as a Shared Space Part XI (2008)

This edition of the un Projects x KINGS Emerging Writers Program workshop reprises an itinerant text by the Melbourne-born Paris-based artist group A Constructed World (1990/3–). A Constructed World is well recognised for their collaborative works in installation, video and performance but they — as two or more — have also made considerable contributions to art criticism and publishing. An essay of theirs, usually titled, Not-knowing as a Shared Space, has, since 2001, been rewritten a number of times in various contexts with different groups of persons, mostly those, though differently, engaged with contemporary art. Across each of its variations, Not-knowing as a Shared Space has come to be an accumulating account of contemporary art, the unconscious and psychoanalysis, class politics, the politics of nature, ignorance, authority, failure and transmission. To that end, this workshop’s primary task is to revisit these variations and continuities in writing while working with new, and necessarily singular, material.

Over a four hour duration we will implement methodologies that are both collaborative and conjunctive. Time will be set for writing, editing, intertextual commentary and reading. Our group will also intermittently approximate something of the Tavistock Method to "explore the unconscious group dynamic as it emerges in the here-and-now."

At the conclusion of the workshop we (think we) will have an essay authored by a group, one which reveals something of that group and of its particular knowing or lack thereof.

Past authors of Not-knowing as a Shared Space have included; Anaïs Clémot, Arnaud Coutellec, Christelle Faucoulanche, Rosemary Forde, Anna Hess, Bruno Latour, Darian Leader, Esther Lowe, Geoff Lowe, Amanda Marburg, Sébastien Pluot, Lisa Radford, Jacqueline Riva, Blair Trethowan, Fabien Vallos, et al. 

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Earlier versions of Not-knowing as a Shared Space are available below. Please read and watch in advance.

Not-knowing as a shared space part VI (2005)

Not-knowing as a shared space part XI (2008)

A reader’s interview with Bruno Latour (2010)

A new role or repertoire for not-knowing (2011)

This workshop is convened by Ragnar Thomas in consultation with A Constructed World. 

Please bring a laptop or phone to write on.

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Places are limited, but there will be a waitlist in place if needed. Tickets are free but donations are very much appreciated.

If you have booked a ticket but are unable to attend, please cancel your ticket via Eventbrite or email amy@kingsartistrun.org.au to allow those on the waitlist to be notified.

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In 2025, KINGS Emerging Writers’ Program is supported by un Projects and the City of Melbourne. The EWP is run by Amy Stuart, Rachel Gresswell and Emily Kostos.

KINGS Artist Run is wheelchair accessible, however we do not have a wheelchair accessible bathroom.

Please email amy@kingsartistrun.org.au for any inquiries.

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