As a platform, GEEX is very intentional in its use of language. In service of our commitment to accessibility and clarity, we want to be forthright in explaining our intent behind the use of certain names and terms.
Definitions and resources
This platform was developed in response to educators’ emergent need for a central and accessible space for communication and collaboration in the period of COVID-19. Educators facilitate knowledge sharing and development.
This category includes institutionally-affiliated professors, teaching assistants, working artists and craftspeople, visiting lecturers and independent instructors.
Related resource: Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks
GEEX frequently uses the title co-learner rather than student; we believe that it suggests an ongoing commitment to learning that persists outside of the classroom. This name asserts co-learners as collaborators in building knowledge, rather than apprentices in an asymmetrical power dynamic.
This category includes students (academic, new-to-glass and practiced glass), lifelong learners, working artists and craftspeople.
Related resource: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Pablo Friere
Our platform is built specifically to serve the ongoing needs of glass education. However, through outreach and communication, we expect and welcome people who haven’t been introduced to glass in this way.
GEEX believes that glass education and dialogue benefits from a wide breadth of perspectives, and hope to bridge the related gap. Onlookers include everyone who’s interested in GEEX programming, especially those who have not worked with or examined this material before. We appreciate your curiosity and vantage point.
Related resource: Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! by Paul Scheerbart (and Jacques Tati’s Playtime)
To provide greater funding to our collaborators and build our platform, GEEX relies on the participation and support of our subscribers. GEEX considers subscribers an integral part of our cooperative model. Subscribers provide support in multiple ways, through participation, assistance and financial contributions.
Individual and institutional GEEX Talks subscribers have committed to a sliding scale of support. This is in recognition of the reality that not all people and glass programs have the same financial resources, and an effort to create sustainable economic models while optimizing accessibility.
Related resource: Making and Being by Caroline Woolard and Susan Jahoda (and support GEEX)
GEEX works with collaborators to facilitate, organize and prioritize their programs and voice. With our collaborators intent and interests as guiding principles, our organization works to further access, garner respect, and include them within a living archive.
GEEX seeks to draw attention to collaborators’ expertise through featured programming and varying models of compensation.
Related resource: Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements by Julietta Singh (and GEEX programs)
Why define these terms?
GEEX explicitly ventures to disambiguate connections and collaborations across the field. This demands a level of respect in all communications reinforcing the importance of knowledge sharing, teaching, and in-field experience while disrupting problematic traditional learning hierarchies.
In that spirit, GEEX seeks to address the needs of all its participants: educators, co-learners, collaborators and subscribers.
These groups are fundamental to the creation and maintenance of the GEEX ecosystem. While they may appear distinct, the goals of GEEX suggests that people may fluctuate through each of those roles over time.
Defining these terms allows GEEX to consider who we are serving and how at every step of the development of our platform.
Note: this section may be periodically updated and supplemented. It’s intended as a living document for both internal and external evaluation and use.