Art Education

Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding, M.A. at the European Graduate School, Switzerland

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Applications are currently being accepted for the M.A. program in Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding (EXA-CT) at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland.  EXA-CT is a low residency master’s program completed over three summer sessions of three weeks each in Switzerland.   During non-residency periods, students complete an internship and write their master’s thesis.

EXA-CT’s unique emphasis on art practice, human rights, and peacebuilding in international settings provides students with the skills and experience to use art in the public sphere for social change.  Artists, humanitarians, therapists, conflict transformation professionals, peacebuilders and policymakers are encouraged to apply.

2012 Summer Session Dates in Saas-Fee, Switzerland

June 12 to July 4: Expressive arts, digital arts, and media
July 10 to August 1: Expressive arts in conflict transformation and peacebuilding

US Federal Government student loans, and limited scholarships from the European Graduate School, are available for eligible EXA-CT students.

Applications are due by April 30, 2012

Late applications will be accepted on a case-by case-basis.  For more information, please contact the Interim Program Director, Prof. Ellen Levine (ellen.levine@egs.edu), follow us on Facebook, or visit the European Graduate School’s website:expressivearts.egs.edu

Program Description

The EXA-CT M.A. is a three-year low residency summer program concentrating on the use of creative methods through the arts to address conflicts within teams, in communities, and across cultures. The EXA-CT program provides students with frameworks for merging the arts with conflict analysis interventions, restorative justice, trauma awareness and healing, mediation, humanitarian response, and research. EXA-CT’s emphasis on art practice, human rights, and peacebuilding in international settings provides students with the skills and experience to use art in public settings for social change.

Distinguished faculty in the fields of the expressive arts and conflict transformation provide instruction during three summer school sessions, with continued support and supervision throughout the year as students complete their internship, thesis, and community of practice.

Summer residency in Switzerland

Students spend three summer sessions in residence in the beautiful Alpine resort town Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Students needing additional prerequisites may complete the coursework over five summer sessions.  Each residential session is 21 days long.  During the first two summer residency periods, students follow courses on the principles and practice of both expressive arts and conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Within each course, students are challenged to experiment with the application of the arts in conflict transformation and peacebuilding paradigms, along with group discussions and reflective exercises. During the third summer session, students complete oral and written exams, and defend their master’s theses.

Sample courses include:

  • Principles and Practice of Expressive Arts: Aesthetic Responsibility in Action
  • Conflict Transformation and Arts-based Approaches to Peacebuilding
  • Community Arts: A Collective Response to Conflict and Crisis
  • Project Design and Implementation in the Field: A Multi-System Approach
  • Conflict and Crisis Intervention: Human-Rights Perspectives
  • Building Resilience in Refugee and Displaced Communities
  • Trauma and Resilience: Expressive Arts Perspectives
  • Biography as a Resource in Humanitarian Interventions
  • Professional Ethics In Community Based Interventions

Non-residency requirements

In between the summer residencies, EXA-CT students are expected to complete a prescribed self-study plan, an internship, and a master’s thesis supervised by an EXA-CT faculty member. Students also participate in the design and creation of the EXA-CT in an ACTION group project and meet in a virtual classroom to discuss assigned readings and videos.

To receive a full description of the EXA-CT program, please visit: expressivearts.egs.edu/academic-programs/masters-programs/master-of-arts-in-expressive-arts-conflict-transformation-and-peacebuilding

For additional information, please contact Prof. Ellen Levine, EXA-CT Interim Program Director: ellen.levine@egs.edu

European Graduate School
Arts, Health & Society Division
Alter Kehr 20
CH-3953 Leuk-Stadt
Switzerland
T + 41 27 474 99 17
F + 41 27 474 99 18
expressivearts.egs.edu

via Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding, M.A. at the European Graduate School, Switzerland | Art & Education.

Approaches to Arts-based Environmental Education by Jan van Boeckel

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Image from Nature Art Education site

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

The Shorelines Symposium which took place at Rozelle Maclaurin included presentations by two keynotes Ian McGilchrist (author of The Master and his Emissary), Chris Drury (artist) as well as a number of others.

The Symposium was organised in conjunction with Alison Bell and Cathy Treadaway‘s exhibition Shorelines currently at in the Maclaurin Galleries.  It was great that a Symposium of this quality took place in Ayr.  We need more of this quality of thinking and discussion.

Jan van Boeckel of the Nature – Art – Education research group at Aalto University, School of Art and Design, Helsinki, gave a short paper entitled Angels talking back and new organs of perception: Art making and intentionality in nature experience.  He has provided the abstract and link to the full paper.

ABSTRACT

This article is about the role of artistic process in connecting to the natural environment. In my research I have explored what participants experienced and learned when they engage in different types of arts-based environmental education (AEE) practices that I have facilitated. The premise of AEE is that efforts to learn about our (natural) environment can effectively take their starting point in an artistic activity, usually conducted in groups.

I found that, on the whole, two major orientations can be distinguished. One starts from the point of aesthetic sensibility: the tuning in with the senses, or with “a new organ of perception” (Goethe), in order to perceive “the more than human” with fresh new eyes. This tradition can be traced back to (but is by no means limited) to the Romantic Movement. Art in this context may help to amplify the receptivity of the senses and strengthen a sense of connectedness to the natural world.

The other major orientation in seeking bridges between nature and art builds on a view of artistic process as leading to unexpected outcomes and “emergent properties.” The fundamentally singular experience of making a work of art may evoke an aesthetic object that becomes a “self-sufficient, spiritually breathing subject” (Kadinsky). The art work can be spontaneously generative and multi-layered with meanings, some of which even ambiguous and paradoxical. But perhaps more importantly: it can catch the participant of an AEE activity by surprise; overwhelm him or her as “coming from behind one’s back.” The element of improvisation, of taking in the new and unanticipated and accommodating for it, is the core quality here.

These two orientations, when practiced as part of AEE, have implications to how we relate to nature through art. In the closing of this article I address the question whether it is possible to bridge the dualism between the two orientations.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
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The 2nd WORLD CONFERENCE ON ARTS EDUCATION

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It is the 34th session of UNESCOs General Conference in October 2007 that decided the Second World Conference should take place as soon as possible and accepted the invitation of the Korean Government to host this event.

Following the ongoing preparation through numerous initiatives across the world, this conference in Seoul aims to promote and to reinforce the value of quality arts education for all, in developing a capacity for creativity in the 21st century for youth and all generation.

The significance and value of arts education has already been underlined and expressed in the “Road Map for Arts Education”, resulting from the First World Conference on Arts Education held in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2006. It is now the time to focus on encouraging the implementation of the “Road Map”. Furthermore, this new global encounter in Seoul of art education actors will target to highlight the socio-cultural dimensions of arts education and reinforce research and knowledge of practices, ensuing from new conceptual and methodological tools.

The 2nd WORLD CONFERENCE ON ARTS EDUCATION.

Art, Community and Environment: Educational Perspectives (Readings in Art and Design Education): Glen Coutts, Timo Jokela

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Art, Community and Environment investigates wide-ranging issues raised by the interaction between art practice, community participation, and the environment, both natural and urban. This volume brings together a distinguished group of contributors from the United States, Australia, and Europe to examine topics such as urban art, community participation, local empowerment, and the problem of ownership. Featuring rich illustrations and informative case studies from around the world, Art, Community and Environment addresses the growing interest in this fascinating discipline. 

via Amazon.com

What is the value of art?

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Sometimes it’s worth asking the questions that are so big people people only raise them shortly before last orders. Kudos to Art 21 | blog who have been running a series of what they call “Flash Points” over the last few months. Their topics have included What’s So Shocking About Contemporary Art? and How Can Art Affect Political Change?

They’ve just started a new strand with What Is The Value of Art, introduced by Beth Allen:

The questions of how art is valued and how it is monetized inevitably overlap: artworks perceived as “important” yield high prices at auction; economic development funding goes to out-of-the-way cultural institutions that bring high quality programming and consequently, tourists, to their neighborhoods; exhibitions that push boundaries attract grants from foundations dedicated to promoting free speech; arts education is consistently underfunded… Buried within questions about the economics of art, are assumptions and often, judgments, about its value that beg to be examined: How is the value of an artist’s intellectual versus physical labor calculated? Are collectible works valued differently than ephemeral projects? How does individual “taste” and critical reception affect the value of an artwork, exhibition, or institution? What factors influence the way we value an artistic experience, as individuals and as a society? How do we quantify the intangible benefits that art education provides? How do we talk about the subtle and personal value that art has in our lives?

And, of course, they’re looking for contributors to stir the pot.

Image:  Photo of Fear Eats The Soul [date unknown] by Rirkrit Tiravanija taken at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, November 22 2008 by j-No

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology