Project Myopia is a decolonising project dedicated to diversifying university curricula and transforming teaching practices. Our priority is making the University a place where marginalised people can breathe, and then thrive.
Our website is a platform for displaying the materials and approaches students feel their curricula would benefit from. We want more submissions of material (visual, literary, cinematic, musical etc) about LGBTQ+ communities, more works created by women, non-binary people, differently abled people and people of colour – as well as radical approaches to teaching and learning. These submissions take the form of semi-academic personal essays between 750-1000 words, explaining the work, its relevance to the reviewer’s personal experience, and most importantly where this work could fit on a university curriculum and why it is worthy of study. Our contributors are based in a range of countries, and we hope that this project will have a global impact in revolutionising pedagogical practices.
We run workshops for university departments and teachers on liberating the classroom which explains our belief in an ethics of care in the classroom, and how to centre student experiences and wellbeing. Our aim is to build confidence for teaching staff in supporting marginalised students and promoting student-staff collaboration in education. We also run workshops on decolonising the curriculum, in which we empower lecturers and GTAs on how to broaden the material offered in their courses, and how Project Myopia can act as a partner in this work.
Project Myopia was founded in December 2016 by Rianna Walcott and Toby Sharpe. They were awarded an Innovation Initiative Grant by the University of Edinburgh Development Trust to create ‘Project Myopia’, connecting globally disparate people with concerns about education reform. We are now funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP). Our team is Director and Founder Rianna Walcott, Managing Editor Hannah McGurk, Head of Outreach Samirah Siddiqui, Communications and Art Manager Maia Walcott and our Editors: Maria Elena Torres-Quevedo, Veronica Vivi, Ketaki Zodgekar, temi lasade-anderson, Katya Zabelski and Jess Hannah.
If you would like to contribute to the website with an essay or artwork, or invite us to hold a workshop at your institution, please email us at projectmyopia@gmail.com with your name, institution (if applicable), and how you would like to get involved!
