Definitely, one of the advantages of speaking through the mouth of a kitten named Pinky and her friends Bunny, Mimi, and Kim is that one can approach any object without rhetorical tricks and calling things by their name. The Pinky Show is an educational resource that Associated Animals Inc. offers to students and teachers and that stems from their interest in the type of learning that takes place (or does not take place) in school.
We share that interest not only in examining the knowledge and habits that are part of the curriculum (including the “hidden” one) but also in understanding the mechanisms and processes through which the value of that knowledge is constructed; also understanding that the ‘value’ of knowledge is based on its ‘use’.
These questions have been a fundamental part of the project Intruder Zone 2 whose first phase ended a few weeks ago, both in the curatorial approach of the traveling exhibition through the institutes of Mataró, as well as in the pedagogical activities in the classrooms. Questions such as: what cultural productions are valued? why? who gives them value? how is it done? which of these productions are considered to be part of or excluded from the official curriculum? and again, why? who decides? what role do students play in this decision? aroused interesting reflections and representations during the debate and work sessions with the students.
It is precisely in that line of thinking that the last chapter of the Pinky show could be perfectly inserted:
We love museums… do museums love us back?
based on a report by Kim entitled:
The creation of value: meditations on the logic of museums and other coercive institutions
(no small feat).