Counterfactuals 
Teacher: Tyler Coburn

Language: English

Purpose and objectives:
This workshop trains students in creating counterfactuals: means of speculating about the possible paths that events could have taken. Students will learn about the form and how it can enable them to bring a critical perspective to the historical record.

Teaching methods:
The focus of the course is on gaming: small groups will collaborate to create and develop counterfactuals over the course of the workshop, which unfold on large rolls of paper. Lectures, readings, and a museum visit will accompany the gaming sessions.

Course content:
Consideration will be given to the applicability of the counterfactual to such topics as cultural restitution, archival practices, and critical counter-historical speculation.

Bio:
Tyler Coburn is an artist and writer based in New York. He has presented artwork at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Bergen Kunsthall; Hayward Gallery, London; Para Site, Hong Kong; and Kunstverein Munich. His writing has appeared in ArtReview, e-flux journal, frieze, and Mousse. Coburn is the author of Some Monologues (Wendy’s Subway, 2025), Solitary (Sternberg Press and Art Sonje Center, 2022), and Richard Roe (Sternberg, 2019).

Notes
All readings can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive...

Bring a laptop or tablet to each session for the purpose of conducting online research

Schedule and preparation: 
Monday 10/12, 10am – 4pm / Theorizing the Counterfactual

Agenda

o Introduction

o Lecture about counterfactuals with particular focus on their possibilities in art making. Potential artists to discuss: Walid Raad/Atlas Group, Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye, Fred Wilson, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Maria Eichhorn, Kader Attia, The Otolith Group, Clarissa Tossin, Jeannette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle

o Discussion of lecture and readings

o Lunch (12pm-1pm)

o Introduction to counterfactual gameplay

o Students break into groups and run a trial game

To prepare for this meeting:

o Read Tyler Coburn, “Counterfactuals,” e-flux j ournal #116 (2021)

o Read Catherine Gallagher, “Introduction,” in Telling It Like It Wasn’t (2018)

o Read Ariella Azoulay, excerpt from Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (2019)

Tuesday 10/13, 10am – 4pm / Rending, Restitution

Agenda

o Discussion of readings

o Screening and discussion of Mati Diop’s Dahomey (2024, 68 mins)

o Lunch (12pm-1pm)

o Group members share potential counterfactuals, and one counterfactual is selected to play over the rest of the workshop.

o Gameplay begins

To prepare for this meeting:

o Come into this session with two potential counterfactuals to play out with your group.

o Read “A Long Duration of Losses” and “To Restitute” from The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy (2018)

o Read Dan Hicks, “The Rule of Names,” in Every Monument Wi ll Fai l (2025)

Wednesday 10/14, 10am – 4pm / Limits of the Archive / Ethics of Speculation

Agenda

o Field trip to the Moesgaard Museum. Discussion of readings and speculative exercise with the Grabulle Man.

o Lunch (1pm-2pm)

o Gameplay continues

To prepare for this meeting:

o Read Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts” (2008)

o Read Elizabeth Freeman, “Queer and Not Now,” in Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (2010)

Thursday 10/15, 10am – 4pm / Conclusion

Agenda

o Gameplay continues

o Lunch (12pm-1pm)

o Gameplay concludes. Each group surveys their game, hypothesizes how it could be further developed, and imagines how it could inspire them to make artwork.

o Groups share their games with the entire workshop. Discussion and reflection.