The Showroom presents two newly commissioned projects that address questions of (in)visibility in relation to how social structures and conditions are experienced in everyday life and made visible, or not, and why this is so. Both are produced within Communal Knowledge – an ongoing programme of artists’ commissions that involve collaborative research and knowledge-exchange within The Showroom’s locality, the Church Street neighbourhood.

Andrea Francke’s Invisible spaces of parenthood: A collection of pragmatic propositions for a better future explores issues surrounding childcare in collaboration with local nurseries, childminders, children’s centres and parent groups, and looks for new models and possibilities. This includes setting up a workshop in The Showroom’s gallery space during the exhibition for visitors and workshop participants to test out DIY designs for furniture and play, some of which are gathered through an open call. Francke intends for these ideas to feed into a manual, for publication in September 2012.

Annette Krauss’ Hidden Curriculum looks at unintended and unrecognised forms of knowledge that are part of learning processes and daily life within schools. Krauss presents videos produced during workshop sessions she led with two groups of 15–17 year old students from local schools. These films look at the invisible values and beliefs that accompany official learning processes, and the informal knowledge and normalisation processes that influence the way we know, see and act in the world.