Education

Tal's educational approach emphasizes hands-on, place-based methodologies and an interdisciplinary focus on culture and ecology. With Eugenia Manwelyan, Tal co-founded Eco Practicum, a pioneering desk-free school for ecological justice in the NYC/Catskills bioregion, designed for college students, recent graduates, and adult learners with backgrounds in the arts and sciences. From 2010-2019, this initiative offered week-long immersive programs that explored the intricate relationships between natural and built environments. Tal also co-founded School of Apocalypse, a collaborative platform for artists, scientists, and thinkers to explore and develop projects at the intersection of creative practice and survival, tackling diverse topics from dance and architecture to racial justice and mycology. Tal is a member of Education Ecologies Collective, a diverse network of collaborators facilitating conversations on higher education, pedagogy, and ecological justice in the context of climate change and other cascading crises. Tal has lectured on adult education in the US and Europe.

Featured Projects

Featured
Eco Practicum
Education
Eco Practicum
Education

2010-2019

A desk-free school for ecological justice, bridging the gap between learning and doing. Immersive programs for college students, recent grads, and adult learners in the NYC/Catskills bioregion.

Education
Newburgh Slow School
Education, Performance
Newburgh Slow School
Education, Performance

Atlas Studios (Newburgh, NY)
Dec 10, 2017

A 6-hour multi-part discussion event bringing together a diverse range voices and perspectives—artists, real estate developers, historians, activists, and others—to discuss the past, present, and future of Newburgh. Each hour, new invited guests were introduced to act as thematic anchors.

Education, Performance
School of Apocalypse
Education, Institution
School of Apocalypse
Education, Institution

Pioneer Works & Sunview Luncheonette (Brooklyn, NY)
2016-2018

A platform for collaborative, interdisciplinary examination of creative practice and notions of survival. SoA offers courses and programming that seek to develop new modes of inquiry and apply broader levels of experience to intellectual investigation.

Education, Institution

Featured Events and Workshops

Featured
Educating for a Just Ecological Transition: Building Higher Educational Alliances in a Time of Climate Crisis
Mar 4
Educational Program
Educating for a Just Ecological Transition: Building Higher Educational Alliances in a Time of Climate Crisis
Educational Program

A virtual summit engaging with emerging responses to the climate crisis in higher education—with particular attention to the roles higher education institutions can play in building alliances with social movements, community organizations, artists, intellectuals, and informal educational structures.

Educational Program
Learning Our Way Out of This Mess: Education and the Climate Crisis
Feb 26
Workshop
Learning Our Way Out of This Mess: Education and the Climate Crisis
Workshop

A workshop to envision new ways of teaching and learning to confront environmental crisis. Workshop participants will work together to distill a set of educational principles from their own personal experiences and use them to develop plans for new programs on campus that can mobilize the student body. We will also explore the many roles artists can play in instigating profound learning experiences for a wide variety of audiences.

Workshop
Education as a Tool for Food System Transformation
Feb 28
Workshop
Education as a Tool for Food System Transformation
Workshop

We will mine our personal experiences to co-generate a list of elements of impactful learning, review best practices in community-based education, and use the Eco Practicum curriculum building tool to begin designing action-oriented educational programs to address North Country food system challenges.

Workshop
A Slow Pedagogy for Instituent Practice
May 25
Lecture
A Slow Pedagogy for Instituent Practice
Lecture

This lecture considers how art schools might adjust to accommodate those artists undertaking new instituent practices. It distills principles for the slow multidisciplinary pedagogy required for these practices to thrive in the academy by drawing on frameworks developed by Nomad9 MFA, Beespace, and School of Apocalypse.

Lecture
Ethics of Apocalypse
Apr 14
Educational Program
Ethics of Apocalypse
Educational Program

A 5-session public course hosted by School of Apocalypse at Pioneer Works examining the idea of apocalypse across a number of religious and scientific communities.

Educational Program