Call for participation

RETHINKING ART EDUCATION

May 7^th 2015
on Bragdøya Island, Kristiansand, Norway

(please sign up for the conference by April 8 th)

«Art education, educational art, art as an educational tool, society as context, research and self-education, art transforming theory into action»

- How does art education work, and how would we like to imagine it working?

- How can existing educational practice be challenged?

Rethinking Art Education will be a 12 hours seminar and conference taking place on the island of Bragdøya, away from urban disturbances. The island is, however, situated not far from the city of Kristiansand. We will bring our guests to the island by boat in the morning. Travelling guests will have to arrive in Kristiansand the evening before, and leave in the morning after the conference.

We hope that all of our participants will be with us the whole day, joining talks, lectures of researchers, open discussions and meals. The island, characterised by Norway's wild nature, is a good place to be; the air is fresh with scents of sea and trees, and the surroundings are beautiful. Historically the Island has also been a site for local art groups and experimental and controversial land art projects.

Participation

Although we have been inviting both international and local specialists as our lecturers, we would like to look at all our guests as «participants» rather than «audience» and «experts».

We intend this conference to be a living encounter with actual exchange of ideas on art education, and we thus encourage you to participate actively in the discussions. Contributions will be held in English.

We also encourage participants to contribute with a short presentation (5-10 min.) about an own example of interest or experience relating to the topic of «rethinking art education» Both theory based examples and free artistic contributions are wellcome. These will be presented at our symposium in the afternoon. Please let us know in advance whether you would like to present, and the topic of your presentation.

Program

The conference will roughly be structured into 3 parts;  

Part 1 contains starting points for further discussions based on both scholarly and institutional points of view.  

Contributors will be researchers like Prof. Irit Rogoff (Goldsmiths, University of London), Prof. Helene Illeris (UIA) and Dr. Tony Valberg (UIA), with subjects such as «Fugitive Study»; «Performative experimental community" and «Togetherness as artistic laboratory». 

Part 2 focuses on activist, experimental or non-institutional approaches, with examples of alternative schools or educational art projects like Temporary Academy by artist and curator André Tribbensee.

The development of a relatively new established institution, Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art in its special social and cultural context, will be discussed by artist and former Professor Åsa Sonjasdotter.

Part 3 will be a diverse symposium for participation, containing many short lectures by our partners and guests, as well as by local researchers. This part will contain space for improvisation. 

Beside all lectures and presentations we will have talks, joint reflection groups and have good meals in-between, ending up sitting by a bonfire in the pale evening light of the Nordic late spring, before leaving the island at night.

Notes about our intentions and expectations:

Our ambition is to invite, challenge and encourage all our guests to participate actively in re-thinking art education. This may already start in advance of the conference through

sharing and mediating ideas or questions on our blog or wherever possible.
In our program we try to keep some open space for discussions and reflections and we will reserve time for further participation during a symposium in the afternoon.

Diversity: We do expect a diverse group of guests and participants coming both from local and regional art scenes and different European countries. Our group of participants could for example consist of a mixture of people like artists, art-teachers, teacher-educators, activists, students, academics, art-professors, musicians, researchers, scientists, amateurs, social pedagogues, cultural workers, administrators, politicians, or people who are just interested in the relation between art, education, and activism, and reflections around such relations. We will challenge our guests to contribute during discussions wherever possible.

This conference will include some unconventional elements, such as an extraordinary environment as the site of the event, activist catering solutions, boat-trips, a bonfire, and
our curatorial strategy. We prefer focussing on the transformative potential of art, on the magic of social encounters and on the value of actual re-thinking, rather than focussing on representations, power-strategies or international and institutional manifestations of status.

RETHINKING ART EDUCATION is curated by André Tribbensee in collaboration with Lisbet Skregelid (UIA) and Tormod W. Anundsen (UIA).

Coordinators are Pål Karsten Kristensen and Angjerd Munksgaard for the municipality of Kristiansand.

Rethinking Art Education is part of a series of conferences, initiated by CreArt, a European network for artistic collaboration and exchange, www.creart-eu.org 

Please share our blogg and look out for news and background information

www.rethinking-art-education.blogspot.com

PRACTICAL INFORMATION / BOOKING: 

• Signing up: Please sign up for the conference by April 8^th, by e-mailing to Angjerd Munksgaard angjerd.munksgaard@kristiansand.kommune.no

• Prices: Full price: 500 Nok, reduced price: 250 Nok. angjerd.munksgaard@kristiansand.kommune.no

• Travel arrangements: Guests arrange their own travel and accommodation. Please don´t hesitate to contact us if you need recommendations.

• Symposium /  your contribution: We encourage you to contribute by a short presentation (5-10 min.) in part 3, the symposium. Please submit your presentation title and a short description to our curator André Tribbensee: tribbensee@hotmail.com