SCHOOL OF DISOBEDIENCE
on disobedience
Disobedience, for us, does not mean disrespecting rules, acting against others, or performing rebellion as an identity.
It means proposing alternatives.
It means refusing passive artistic waiting: waiting for permission, selection, validation, funding, or institutional approval before beginning.
It means questioning formulas, inherited aesthetics, ready-made languages, and the idea that an artist must follow one existing path.
At the School of Disobedience, disobedience is a practice of authorship.
Artists learn to develop their own methods, build their own structures, initiate their own opportunities, and create the conditions that allow their work to exist.
It is the movement from imitation to language.
From dependency to direction.
From waiting to making.
It means proposing alternatives.
It means refusing passive artistic waiting: waiting for permission, selection, validation, funding, or institutional approval before beginning.
It means questioning formulas, inherited aesthetics, ready-made languages, and the idea that an artist must follow one existing path.
At the School of Disobedience, disobedience is a practice of authorship.
Artists learn to develop their own methods, build their own structures, initiate their own opportunities, and create the conditions that allow their work to exist.
It is the movement from imitation to language.
From dependency to direction.
From waiting to making.
guidelines
The School of Disobedience works within a clear artistic and educational framework. These guidelines exist to protect the work, the group, and the conditions necessary for study, creation, and experimentation.
Professional focus
Our programs are artistic, not therapeutic.
They may involve personal material, reflection, movement, writing, or sharing, but the focus remains artistic practice, research, creation, and professional development.
Personal experience can become material.
It does not become the center of the group process.
Artistic frame
The school is an authored educational space.
Teachers, mentors, and facilitators are responsible for holding the structure, timing, rhythm, and direction of the program. Dialogue, questions, feedback, and disagreement are welcome. The frame of the class is not negotiated through collective emotional pressure.
Personal material and limits
Participants are asked to be mindful with sensitive personal experiences. The school is not equipped for explicit trauma processing or therapeutic intervention.
You are responsible for what you choose to share, how you share it, and whether the space is appropriate for it.
Boundaries
Creative work can be intimate without becoming private exposure. Participants are encouraged to distinguish between personal experience and artistic form, between individual emotion and collective process, between artistic practice and therapy. This distinction protects everyone.
Strong emotions
Sometimes strong emotions may appear during artistic work. When they do, participants are asked to take responsibility for them without making the group carry, solve, or manage them. Stepping out, pausing, breathing, writing, or taking distance are welcome ways to regulate before returning to the work.
Listening and disagreement
We value precise listening, especially when perspectives differ. Disagreement is part of artistic education. It should be expressed directly, respectfully, and in relation to the work, the frame, or the situation being discussed.
The aim is not consensus. The aim is clarity, attention, and the ability to keep working.
Feedback is consensual and framed
Feedback is not automatic and should only be given when it is explicitly requested by the person presenting the work. The aim is not to multiply opinions, but to cultivate thoughtful and nourishing exchanges.
Participation
Participation means presence, attention, preparation, and responsibility toward the group.
If you tend to speak often, practice leaving space.
If you tend to stay silent, practice entering when you are ready.
The group benefits from different rhythms, but everyone is expected to contribute to the working environment.
Attendance
Attendance is required. Participants may miss no more than two sessions per module and no more than one session per retreat. During a session, you may step out briefly if needed and return when ready. Leaving the process repeatedly or for extended periods affects the group, the work, and your participation in the program.
Responsibility
Freedom needs structure.
The school supports experimentation, risk-taking, joy, play, and artistic exploration. This is possible because the frame is clear enough to hold the process. Participants are expected to respect the space, the timing, the work, the teachers, the group, and their own limits.
Professional focus
Our programs are artistic, not therapeutic.
They may involve personal material, reflection, movement, writing, or sharing, but the focus remains artistic practice, research, creation, and professional development.
Personal experience can become material.
It does not become the center of the group process.
Artistic frame
The school is an authored educational space.
Teachers, mentors, and facilitators are responsible for holding the structure, timing, rhythm, and direction of the program. Dialogue, questions, feedback, and disagreement are welcome. The frame of the class is not negotiated through collective emotional pressure.
Personal material and limits
Participants are asked to be mindful with sensitive personal experiences. The school is not equipped for explicit trauma processing or therapeutic intervention.
You are responsible for what you choose to share, how you share it, and whether the space is appropriate for it.
Boundaries
Creative work can be intimate without becoming private exposure. Participants are encouraged to distinguish between personal experience and artistic form, between individual emotion and collective process, between artistic practice and therapy. This distinction protects everyone.
Strong emotions
Sometimes strong emotions may appear during artistic work. When they do, participants are asked to take responsibility for them without making the group carry, solve, or manage them. Stepping out, pausing, breathing, writing, or taking distance are welcome ways to regulate before returning to the work.
Listening and disagreement
We value precise listening, especially when perspectives differ. Disagreement is part of artistic education. It should be expressed directly, respectfully, and in relation to the work, the frame, or the situation being discussed.
The aim is not consensus. The aim is clarity, attention, and the ability to keep working.
Feedback is consensual and framed
Feedback is not automatic and should only be given when it is explicitly requested by the person presenting the work. The aim is not to multiply opinions, but to cultivate thoughtful and nourishing exchanges.
Participation
Participation means presence, attention, preparation, and responsibility toward the group.
If you tend to speak often, practice leaving space.
If you tend to stay silent, practice entering when you are ready.
The group benefits from different rhythms, but everyone is expected to contribute to the working environment.
Attendance
Attendance is required. Participants may miss no more than two sessions per module and no more than one session per retreat. During a session, you may step out briefly if needed and return when ready. Leaving the process repeatedly or for extended periods affects the group, the work, and your participation in the program.
Responsibility
Freedom needs structure.
The school supports experimentation, risk-taking, joy, play, and artistic exploration. This is possible because the frame is clear enough to hold the process. Participants are expected to respect the space, the timing, the work, the teachers, the group, and their own limits.
on the move
The School of Disobedience was originally conceived as a travelling school: a nomadic and pop-up structure moving between cities, institutions, festivals, residencies, and temporary occupations. Its first session took place in Yerevan in July 2014. Since then, the school has developed through invitations, encounters, collaborations, and site-specific contexts across Europe and beyond, in formats ranging from one-day laboratories to longer residencies and study programs. For many years, mobility shaped the pedagogy. The school learned how to occupy, transform, and temporarily activate different spaces.
Today, the School of Disobedience is entering a new chapter. Now rooted in its own space in Budapest, the project is shifting from temporary presence toward continuity, long-term artistic development, and situated practice. This does not erase its nomadic history. It gives it a new form. The question is no longer only how to move through spaces, but how to build one. A place where artists can study, research, create, present, meet, return, and continue. A place where methods can deepen, practices can grow, and artistic ecosystems can be sustained over time. The School of Disobedience remains experimental, flexible, and open to exchange. But it is now also becoming what artists deeply need: a stable ground for unstable practices.
Today, the School of Disobedience is entering a new chapter. Now rooted in its own space in Budapest, the project is shifting from temporary presence toward continuity, long-term artistic development, and situated practice. This does not erase its nomadic history. It gives it a new form. The question is no longer only how to move through spaces, but how to build one. A place where artists can study, research, create, present, meet, return, and continue. A place where methods can deepen, practices can grow, and artistic ecosystems can be sustained over time. The School of Disobedience remains experimental, flexible, and open to exchange. But it is now also becoming what artists deeply need: a stable ground for unstable practices.
cancellation & refund policy
- Cancellations 4-12 months prior to the program start date: 50% refund.
- Cancellations 0-3 months prior to the program start date: No refund.
- Program cancellation by the School of Disobedience: 100% refund or alternative arrangement offered.
- Withdrawal after the program has started: No refund for students who withdraw voluntarily after beginning the program.
- Accounting and administrative timeframe: All refund requests must be made within the same accounting year as the original payment. Once the accounting year has closed, we are no longer able to process refunds.