A 1-Week Pop-up College About Protocols & Re-Imaginable Seas ・ 15-20 September 2025 ・ Kuala Lumpur

Introduction

Part frontier study group, part polycrisis-era Southeast Asian studies, and part prototype SEA storytelling school, Seapunk Proto-College (SPC) is a one-week prototype pop-up college this coming September 15-20 in Kuala Lumpur.

What’s a pop-up college?

The word ‘college’ originally refers to a community of learning or study. A ‘college of fellows’ is also a group of colleagues and friends (with a shared interest, often relating to learning and collective study).

Drawing from this sense of ‘college’, SPC comprises a group of curious learner ‘proto-colleagues’ gathering and ‘popping up’ for a week to:

• Study the latest protocol thinking (solving coordination problems through shared rules and processes)
• Search for and imagine fresh systems and milieus, especially in the context of frontier-imaginable Southeast Asias
• Synthesize and apply these learnings and thoughts via a two-part (fiction + nonfiction) weeklong writing project
• Share and discuss initial ideas at an end-of-week Seapunk Proto-College Symposium for a larger invited public

SPC’s curriculum combines world-premiering Protocol School courses with unique Seapunk Studies modules into a hybrid program that blends online content with in-person seminars, writing workshops, and hands-on learning experiences.

In the spirit of punk, and as SPC is a prototype, there will be no program fees for participation.

Overview

What might one expect at SPC? Here’s an overview. Lots more info below.

Info sessions

Join an upcoming info session (UTC+8 / KUL):

• Sep 5 (Fri) 10-11am — Gcal