This paper positions the para-pedagogical as a liberatory practice and theoretical orientation of ‘learning beside’. It seeks to liberate pedagogy from the contextualising of objects and artefacts through the reimagining of learning, people and more-than-human bodies and energies as material. Building on a shared interest in interrogating how learning moves through mainstream education, the para-pedagogical in this context situates the work in direct relation with the gallery and museum sector rather than the university. Drawing from embodied research across diverse geographies and institutional contexts, it argues for fermentation as a methodological lens, articulated through a set of ‘fermentation intelligences’ that make para-pedagogical work possible. These intelligences—contamination, queer temporalities, interspecies kinship, agitating towards stability, and preserving and transforming—animate pedagogy as a site of relational learning, institutional reimagining, and sovereignty through the position of the beside. By shifting focus from outcomes to conditions, the paper repositions pedagogy as central, not to contextualise objects, artists, or exhibitions, but as a critical, sovereign force in its own right. It contributes to emerging discourses on para-institutionalism and pedagogical sovereignty, proposing new vocabularies and infrastructures through which institutions might re-world themselves amidst cultural and ecological precarity. This is not a model to scale, but a method to sit with: porous, durational, and alive with potential. The para-pedagogical, as articulated here, is both a vessel and an invitation to begin again, beside again, and again.
Keywords: para-pedagogical, fermentation intelligences, institutional critique, eco-pedagogies, para-curatorial 100-word bio Lleah Smith practices at the intersection of pedagogy, art, and the curatorial. Since 2012, she has made significant contributions in the Asia-Pacific Region, working independently and through institutional roles. She is currently Head of Public Practice & Creative Enquiry at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre and Puke Ariki Museum and Libraries in Ngāmotu, Aotearoa. Her PhD research at Monash University agitates the pedagogy–art–curatorial relationship by positioning fermentation as teacher, speculative metaphor, and guiding force for change. Smith creates spaces of productive agitation within caring environments that enable difference to flourish. Her independent research into the para-pedagogical—which bubbled up during a 2024 residency at Konstmuseet i Norr (KIN), Sweden and cultivated over 12 years of practice— extends this enquiry into situated, materially grounded curatorial methodologies.