Applied Non-didactics

Onsite only

Host: Frank Brümmel, Lecturer, Doctoral researcher, Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki

Venue: The White Studio (Valkoinen studio), Uniarts Helsinki’s Sörnäinen campus, in the Academy of Fine Arts building Mylly (Sörnäisten rantatie 19, Helsinki).

The days´ presentations and experiments will circle around the topic of artist as teacher / teaching at art schools and certain pedagogies that come with this or do not. We will look into questions of how artists can bring in their own artistic work into the teaching process as for how to bridge the gap from theoretical to practice led conversations.

Program
Wednesday, 14 December 2022

9:15 Welcome and presentations

9:30 Gert Biesta: Authority In Teaching
The question of authority has troubled educators and students for a long time. While Socratic teaching is often presented as a way to resolve the problem of authority – after all, on the surface it looks like Socrates is engaged in rather open conversations with his students – it is clear that in most cases there is only one inevitable conclusion for his students to arrive at. Socratic teaching is therefore more like setting a trap than being concerned about students and their freedom. In the 1960s, proponents of anti-authoritarian education argued that education itself is the problem. They thus tried to solve the problem of authority by doing away with education altogether. Paulo Freire sought to dissolve the ‘teacher-student contradiction’ by seeing teachers and students as equals in a joint process of discovery. Nowadays the idea that the teacher is just a facilitator of student learning seems to pursue a similar strategy for resolving the question of authority in education. In my presentation I will argue that we cannot avoid the question of authority in education, and therefore need to figure out what the source of authority in education actually is. I will, amongst other things, discuss the difference between power and authority, explore the case for a relational understanding of authority, and will suggest that education is a triadic relationship between teacher, student and ‘something,’ and that it is this ‘something’ that ultimately is the source of authority in education. All this, so I will suggest, can particularly be seen in artistic practices and art education.

10:20 Q&A

10:40 Break

10:50 Grant White: A place for transformation: pedagogical space and ritual in a partially-disenchanted world

How might we create spaces for teaching, learning and transformation in a partially-disenchanted world? This presentation will explore this question from the perspective of ritual studies and of ritual practices past and present. The presentation will also discuss the question of relating pedagogical space to a broader community of learning through exploration of the idea of multi-use space as palimpsest.

11:40 Q&A

12:00–13:00 Lunch (not included)

13:00 Hanna Vahvaselkä, Frank Brümmel, Sanna Vuolteenaho, Tapani Heikinheimo and Henna Laininen
An interplay between music, movement, fine arts, and space in interaction with the audience. We´ll also hear about a new publication on creative writing teaching (- more info on that at end of this page).

14:40 Q&A

15:00 Coffee

15:20 Magnus Quaife: The Oscillating Art School
In his presentation The Oscillating Art School Magnus Quaife will highlight a key difference between pedagogies employed by artists teaching in higher arts education in England and Finland. He will suggest that, within the plural landscape of contemporary art, art schools must explore modes of teaching beyond the oral dialogical in order to enable students to become polyglottic in their engagement with the material and conceptual possibilities of the field. As part of this he will propose that today’s art students benefit from encountering multiple modes of pedagogy rather than different modes of thought within a singular pedagogical system.

16:10 Q&A

16:30-17:00 Panel discussion with all presenters and questions from the audience

17:00 End of day

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Henna Laininen
Climate Change in Me – Creative Writing Teaching Material for Addressing Environmental Issues with Young People

The Climate Change in Me creative writing teaching material consists of creative writing exercises for addressing environmental emotions, sustainable future, and environmental activism together with young people. The goal of the exercises is to create space for hearing and sharing environmental emotions in a safe group, for expanding the imagination about the possible futures, and for considering each participant’s own role as an environmental actor.

The Climate Change in Me teaching material is part of Henna Laininen’s doctoral thesis for the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. The material is published by the Sanataideyhdistys Yöstäjä ry creative writing association and the production of the teaching material has received financial support from the Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Central Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport, and the Environment. The material will be published on the website in December 2022.

Visit website