Growing & Eating Together
No
A gathering facilitated by artist, gardener and cook Jek McAllister.
This evening gathering invites participants to come together to share a collective meal made of ingredients sourced from community gardens in Dundee.
Foregrounding the ideas of artist as host and hospitality as a method in relation to community building, the gathering explores tactics for togetherness through sharing with and listening to each other.
This gathering is inspired by Grace Ndiritu’s experiments at the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland in 2013 and through The Ark Centre For Interdisciplinary Experimentation, a community founded by Ndiritu in 2017. Both are documented in her book Being Together: A Manual For Living. Ndiritu’s community building experiments also draw upon a lineage of practitioners including Taiwanese artist Li Yuan-chia, who founded The LYC Museum & Art Gallery (1971-1982) in Cumbria and is one of the artists featured in the exhibition Compassionate Rebels in Action at Cooper Gallery.
This gathering is the final event in A Season of Peace Building, programmed with Grace Ndiritu for The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5. This series of conversations, workshops and gatherings is designed by Grace Ndiritu, drawing on her book Being Together: A Manual For Living as a template.
Sign-up
Free, open to all, limited numbers.
To participate please sign-up for a space via Eventbrite.
Biography
Jek McAllister is an artist, facilitator, gardener, and cook based in Dundee. Jek graduated from DJCAD BA Fine Art in 2019 and has since completed an NC in Horticulture. Currently working at Ninewells Community Garden as Community Engagement Facilitator, her day to day practice is and always has been concerned with with creating fun circumstances for people to come together, hang out and experience or learn something (often around food). Jek has run Wooosh Gallery, Dundee’s most haunted car park based gallery that is open 24/7, alongside fellow graduates Jamie Donald and Finlay Hall since 2019. Jek was artist in residence with Hospitalfield’s Graduate Programme 2023–24. Currently, she is Lead Artist & Project Manager for Alternative (art) School, a project by Forgan Art Centre in partnership with Madras College, supporting people aged 13–18 years who feel excluded from mainstream education through a programme of art, craft and horticultural workshops led by artists.
Access
Cooper Gallery is located to the right side of the DJCAD buildings on Perth Road. The entrance is via double doors which face onto a car park.
The gallery is on two floors. First floor has ramped access and disabled toilet.
Second floor is accessible via lift and for wheelchair access via a stairclimber. The event is held on the first floor. The exhibition is on both the first and second floor of the gallery.
Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access.
First floor is also accessible via 24 steps. Two flights of 12 steps with handrails are separated by a landing.
Exhibition videos are subtitled and captioned in English. Seating is provided and/or additional seating available, please ask an invigilator.
For all enquiries please email: [email protected]
Toilets
The ground floor has a wheelchair accessible toilet. The toilet is gender neutral.
Interpretation
Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides. If you require alternative formats for material in exhibitions please email or ask our Guides.
About the exhibition
Compassionate Rebels in Action, is an exhibition and event programme by Grace Ndiritu.
It is the fifth iteration of Cooper Gallery's programme, The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Towards Creative Emancipation.
Visit
10 October – 13 December 2025
Tuesday – Saturday, 12–5pm
Image credit
The Ark: Center For Interdisciplinary Experimentation, 2017, installation shot, Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Paris, FR. Photo credit: Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #5 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in 5 | Grace Ndiritu
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5 | A Season of Peace Building
Yes
Yes
Gathering facilitated by Jek McAllister
Writing & Decolonising Together | Titilayo Farukuoye
No
To you, my dear Enemy
Join a series of letter writing experiments addressing “Other” or “Enemy” to imagine decolonial practice and embrace lessons of collective change, liberatory action, empathy and humanity.
Participants are invited to write anonymous Love Letters (to be shared with each other) to engage in bridge-building and work toward truth and reconciliation with the Other.
The session is grounded in the spirit of anti-racism, feminism and decolonial strategies centred in Ndiritu’s Book Being Together – A Manual For Living.
Responding to and informed by Ndiritu’s practice, writer, organiser and anti-racism practitioner Titilayo Farukuoye will guide participants through a series of invitations to prompt the letter writing. No prior experience or preparation is required.
Beyond the session, participants are invited to contribute their physical letters to be added to Ndiritu’s archive.
This event is part of A Season of Peace Building, programmed with Grace Ndiritu for The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5. This series of conversations, workshops and gatherings is designed by Grace Ndiritu, drawing on her book Being Together: A Manual For Living as a template.
Sign-up
Free, open to all.
To participate please sign-up for a space via Eventbrite.
Participant Info
No prior experience or preparation is required.
Participants are invited to contribute their physical letters to Ndiritu's archive.
The exhibition will be open to view ahead of the workshop beginning.
Equipment
Paper will be provided.
Please bring a pen/pencil for writing with.
Free
Biography
Titilayo Farukuoye (they/them) is a writer, educator and organiser based in Glasgow. Their work addresses social justice and community care and is informed by rights and cultural leaders like Assata Shakur and Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí. Titilayo invites us to dream and use our radical imagination to seek more just realities. Titilayo co-directs the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and is a winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Their poetry pamphlet In Wolf’s Skin is available with Stewed Rhubarb Press and Titilayo’s non-fiction book But We Did: Dismantling colonialist myths towards collective liberation is forthcoming with Saraband.
Access
Cooper Gallery is located to the right side of the DJCAD buildings on Perth Road. The entrance is via double doors which face onto a car park.
The gallery is on two floors. First floor has ramped access and disabled toilet.
Second floor is accessible via lift and for wheelchair access via a stairclimber. The event is held on the second floor. The exhibition is on both the first and second floor of the gallery.
Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access.
First floor is also accessible via 24 steps. Two flights of 12 steps with handrails are separated by a landing.
Exhibition videos are subtitled and captioned in English. Seating is provided and/or additional seating available, please ask an invigilator.
For all enquiries please email: [email protected]
Toilets
The ground floor has a wheelchair accessible toilet. The toilet is gender neutral.
Interpretation
Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides. If you require alternative formats for material in exhibitions please email or ask our Guides.
About the exhibition
Compassionate Rebels in Action, is an exhibition and event programme by Grace Ndiritu.
It is the fifth iteration of Cooper Gallery's programme, The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Towards Creative Emancipation.
Visit
10 October – 13 December 2025
Tuesday – Saturday, 12–5pm
Image credit
Healing Justice, 2019. Workshop documentation, Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, CA.
Photo by Grace Ndiritu
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #5 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in 5 | Grace Ndiritu
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5 | A Season of Peace Building
Book a free place via Eventbrite
Yes
Yes
Workshop facilitated by Titilayo Farukuoye
Sitting Together
No
Reading Group facilitated by Gareth Evans.
This reading group will invite participants to collectively read John Berger's 1968 essay The Nature of Mass Demonstrations and discuss the relevance of the essay within the current context of global unrest; why it is necessary to protest and how protest acts as an engine of hope in the present, building solidarities and creating temporary autonomous zones of collective belonging.
This event is part of A Season of Peace Building, programmed with Grace Ndiritu for The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5. This series of conversations, workshops and gatherings is designed by Grace Ndiritu, drawing on her book Being Together: A Manual For Living as a template.
Sign-up
Book a free workshop place via Eventbrite.
Participants will receive an online meeting link after registering.
Participant information
This session is free and open to all. It will be an online meeting held on Zoom.
We will be discussing John Berger's article The Nature of Mass Demonstrations (1968).
Participants are invited to read the short article in advance of the reading group. It is available to access at the link above.
Additional information
John Berger won the Booker Prize for his novel G, and famously turned 'the prize against itself' in the very speech he is giving here. The novel features a key portrayal of the Milan uprisings of 1898, the event that initiates the essay we are discussing. You can read more about the novel and its reception: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/i-have-to-turn-the-prize-against-itself-john-bergers-1972-booker-prize
Free
Access
The event will be lived captioned on Zoom.
All enquiries please contact: [email protected]
Biography
Gareth Evans is a London-based writer, editor, film and event curator and producer, host and documentary mentor. He works on special projects for the London Review of Books and curates their Screen at Home series. From 2012 - 2023 he was the Adjunct Moving Image Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery. He conceived and curated a six-week cross-arts festival, Here Is Where We Meet in 2005, dedicated entirely to the work of John Berger, with the author present throughout. His poem Hold Everything Dear gave the title to, and was published in Berger's 2008 collection of the same name. He published Berger's A Sparrow's Journey in 2016.
About the exhibition
Compassionate Rebels in Action, is an exhibition and event programme by Grace Ndiritu.
It is the fifth iteration of Cooper Gallery's programme, The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Towards Creative Emancipation.
Visit
10 October – 13 December 2025
Tuesday – Saturday, 12–5pm
Image Credit
John Berger speech at the 1972 Booker Prize. Courtesy The Booker Prize Foundation
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #5 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in 5 | Grace Ndiritu
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5 | A Season of Peace Building
Sign-up for a free place via Eventbrite
Yes
Yes
Reading Group facilitated by Gareth Evans
Designing Together COVERSLUT©
No
Workshop facilitated by Rachel Siobhán Tyler hosted by V&A Dundee.
This workshop takes inspiration from COVERSLUT©, Ndiritu’s fashion brand founded in 2016. COVERSLUT© integrates capitalist, Pay What You Can (PWYC) and environmental/ethical strategies into its economic framework, and is focused on dealing with issues of race, gender, and class politics. The workshop will collaboratively consider how ethos central to COVERSLUT© can help us envision new ways of designing together—and will ask: “who has the right to be fashionable?”
The workshop opens with an introduction to COVERSLUT© and the brand’s anti-sweatshop stance – including decolonial and equitable practices of fair wages, new economic models (like PWYC), and critical and environmental practices—such as low-impact textile processes, and post-consumer re-use. We will then discuss how stories of gender, labour, and class saturate our own clothes. We will conclude with a design workshop looking at how existing garments can be literally, and metaphorically, ‘re-used’ to create new ways of designing and thinking about fashion together.
This event is part of A Season of Peace Building, programmed with Grace Ndiritu for The Ignorant Art School: Sit-in Curriculum #5 and held in collaboration with V&A Dundee. This series of conversations, workshops and gatherings is designed by Grace Ndiritu, drawing on her book Being Together: A Manual For Living as a template.
Participant info
- You are invited to bring along a favourite (or least favourite!) garment to share and explore in the workshop
- We will have papers and pens and other mark-making materials available.
Sign-up
Book a place through V&A Dundee
Free
Biography
Rachel Siobhán Tyler is a transdisciplinary artist, design historian, and educator, working at the intersection of art, architecture, fashion, and geography, collaborating with artists, designers, and makers. Their practice draws on a design background, and focuses on developing innovative approaches to feminist, queer, and inclusive knowledge-making. Rachel is a lecturer at Falmouth University and is part of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project. Rachel’s work has been exhibited at Building Centre, London; Folkestone Triennale, Folkestone; The Bartlett School of Architecture, London; and at Somerset House, London; Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, and on-schedule during London Fashion Week as a part of New Power Studio.
About the exhibition
Compassionate Rebels in Action, is an exhibition and event programme by Grace Ndiritu.
It is the fifth iteration of Cooper Gallery's programme, The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Towards Creative Emancipation.
Visit
10 October – 13 December 2025
Tuesday – Saturday, 12–5pm
Image credit
Design Together workshops at Manoeuvre Minus One, Ghent, 2018-19. Photo by Grace Ndiritu.
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #5 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Partnership
This event is a collaboration in partnership with V&A Dundee.
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in 5 | Grace Ndiritu
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5 | A Season of Peace Building
Book a free place via V&A Dundee
Yes
Yes
Workshop facilitated by Rachel Siobhán Tyler
Feeling Together
No
Workshop & In-conversation with Grace Ndiritu & Lama Rinchen Palmo, chaired by Sophia Yadong Hao, Director and Principal Curator Cooper Gallery.
How can we use spirituality in the context of global politics to navigate the multifaceted challenges we face today? From the street to the temple how can we use our minds and hearts to be better activists and creative and spiritual practitioners?
In this workshop Grace Ndiritu and her Tibetan Buddhist teacher, the Venerable Lama Rinchen Palmo from the Kagyu lineage, will explore the subject of Radical Spirituality together with participants. Kagyu translates as "Whispered Transmission” and incorporates learning through personal experience, meditation and a deep connection between teacher and student.
We invite you to join with Grace Ndiritu and Lama Rinchen for this special one-off event.
This is a cross-cultural, cross-generational, inter-faith workshop welcome to all.
The second event as part of A Season of Peace Building, programmed with Grace Ndiritu for The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5. This series of conversations, workshops and gatherings is designed by Grace Ndiritu, drawing on her book Being Together: A Manual For Living as a template.
Sign-up
Event is free and open to all to attend.
Sign-up via Eventbrite.
Biographies
Sophia Yadong Hao is Director & Principal Curator of Cooper Gallery, Reader in Curatorial Practice at DJCAD, University of Dundee, and Visiting Professor at the University of Sunderland. Working internationally, Hao characterises the curatorial as a rhizomatic praxis capable of transforming exhibition making into a testing ground for radical futures. Hao was named one of The List’s Hot 100 in 2024: The Most Influential Scottish Cultural Contributors.
Lama Rinchen Palmo
Of French descent, Lama Rinchen Palmo is a highly experienced meditation teacher who has spent over 12 years in retreat. She is specialised in the Vajrayana practices of Tibetan Buddhism, including the Ngondro. She is one of the three Western lamas who have been appointed within the Samye Ling mandala and is well known for her compassionate and down-to-earth style of teaching.
Grace Ndiritu is a British-Kenyan (Maasai Kikuyu) visual artist, filmmaker and writer whose artworks are concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world.
Access
Cooper Gallery is located to the right side of the DJCAD buildings on Perth Road. The entrance is via double doors which face onto a car park.
The gallery is on two floors. First floor has ramped access and disabled toilet.
Second floor is accessible via lift and for wheelchair access via a stairclimber. The event is held on the second floor. The exhibition is on both the first and second floor of the gallery.
Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access.
First floor is also accessible via 24 steps. Two flights of 12 steps with handrails are separated by a landing.
Exhibition videos are subtitled and captioned in English. Seating is provided and/or additional seating available, please ask an invigilator.
For all enquiries please email: [email protected]
Toilets
The ground floor has a wheelchair accessible toilet. The toilet is gender neutral.
Interpretation
Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides. If you require alternative formats for material in exhibitions please email or ask our Guides.
About the exhibition
Compassionate Rebels in Action, is an exhibition and event programme by Grace Ndiritu.
It is the fifth iteration of Cooper Gallery's programme, The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Towards Creative Emancipation.
Visit
10 October – 13 December 2025
Tuesday – Saturday, 12–5pm
Image credit
Healing The Museum, 2019, Performance documentation, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, BE.
Photo credit: Caroline Lessire, courtesy Grace Ndiritu
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #5 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in 5 | Grace Ndiritu
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5 | A Season of Peace Building
Yes
Yes
Workshop & In-conversation with Grace Ndiritu & Lama Rinchen Palmo
Living Together
No
To mark the opening of Sit-in #5: Companionate Rebels in Action, and the second edition of her book Being Together: A Manual for Living being published earlier this year; Grace Ndiritu will do a reading from the book, interspersed by meditation breaks, followed by an in-conversation and a discussion of Ndiritu's new publication Glossary for Art and Action, with Cooper Gallery Director and Principal Curator Sophia Yadong Hao.
Copies of both publications will be available to purchase on the night.
This event begins A Season of Peace Building, programmed with Grace Ndiritu for The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5. This series of conversations, workshops and gatherings is designed by Grace Ndiritu, drawing on her book Being Together: A Manual For Living as a template.
Schedule
5.30pm | Doors open
6–7pm | Grace Ndiritu & Sophia Yadong Hao in-conversation
7.30–8.30pm | Exhibition preview
Sign-up
Event is free and open to all to attend.
Sign-up to ensure a seat via Eventbrite.
Audiences without tickets will be welcome but we cannot guarantee seating.
Audience info
Alcoholic drinks will be served and non-alcoholic refreshments will be available.
Free
Biographies
Sophia Yadong Hao is Director & Principal Curator of Cooper Gallery, Reader in Curatorial Practice at DJCAD, University of Dundee, and Visiting Professor at the University of Sunderland. Working internationally, Hao characterises the curatorial as a rhizomatic praxis capable of transforming exhibition making into a testing ground for radical futures. Hao was named one of The List’s Hot 100 in 2024: The Most Influential Scottish Cultural Contributors.
Grace Ndiritu is a British-Kenyan (Maasai Kikuyu) visual artist, filmmaker and writer whose artworks are concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world.
Access
Cooper Gallery is located to the right side of the DJCAD buildings on Perth Road. The entrance is via double doors which face onto a car park.
The gallery is on two floors. First floor has ramped access and disabled toilet.
Second floor is accessible via lift and for wheelchair access via a stairclimber. The event is held on the second floor. The exhibition is on both the first and second floor of the gallery.
Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access.
First floor is also accessible via 24 steps. Two flights of 12 steps with handrails are separated by a landing.
Exhibition videos are subtitled and captioned in English. Seating is provided and/or additional seating available, please ask an invigilator.
Alcoholic drinks will be served. Non alcoholic refreshments available.
For all enquiries please email: [email protected]
Toilets
The ground floor has a wheelchair accessible toilet. The toilet is gender neutral.
Interpretation
Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides. If you require alternative formats for material in exhibitions please email or ask our Guides.
About the exhibition
Compassionate Rebels in Action, is an exhibition and event programme by Grace Ndiritu.
It is the fifth iteration of Cooper Gallery's programme, The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins Towards Creative Emancipation.
Visit
10 October – 13 December 2025
Tuesday – Saturday, 12–5pm
Image credit
The Ark: Center For Interdisciplinary Experimentation, 2017. Documentation, Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris, FR.
Photo credit: Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, courtesy Grace Ndiritu.
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #5 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
Cooper Gallery
The Ignorant Art School | Sit-in 5 | Grace Ndiritu
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in Curriculum #5 | A Season of Peace Building
Yes
Yes
Exhibition Preview, Book Launch & In-conversation with Grace Ndiritu & Sophia Yadong Hao