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Art Education In Discussion

Central to NAFAE's objectives is creating debate that stimulates and informs current trends within Fine Art Education. The following articles provide NAFAE members with the opportunity to publicly express their opinions on the the chosen topics.

It is hoped that by being a portal for such relevant debate NAFAE can become pivotal in protecting and shaping the future of Fine Art Education.
If you have a topic that you wish to see discussed then please get in touch.


  • A Trip to the Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn

    Michael Marshall

  • The Tory Objection to Creative Education

    Paul Haywood

  • Then And Now

    From a (greater) distance 1967 - 2009
    Tim Dunbar

  • An Introduction to REF 2014

    Howard Riley

  • NAFAE response to national curriculum reforms

    CHEAD - Call for feedback: Draft consultation response on Reform of the National Curriculum in England for Key Stages 1-3
    Paul Haywood

  • The Shame of the English Baccalaureate

    The view of the National Association for Fine Art Education
    Paul Haywood

  • Art Education - Mixed feelings

    David Dye, December 2011
    Anonymous

  • Making Sense of Art

    The Relationship between Art Criticism and Theories of Visual Hermeneutics
    Howard Riley

  • GLAD Conference 2008

    Simon Lewis, Keynote speach
    Simon Lewis

  • May you teach in interesting times

    Howard Riley

NAFAE Events


Research Conference

  • LIVING RESEARCH: THE URGENCY OF THE ARTS

    LIVING RESEARCH: THE URGENCY OF THE ARTS

    • Event Details
    • Event Papers

    NAFAE Research Student Conference

    Friday, 15 March 2019 (All day)

    Event Institution: 

    Royal College of Art

    Event Partner: 

    National Association for Fine Art Education

    Callout Link: 

    Call Out

    Booking website:

    Eventbrite

    Free to NAFAE members.

    Event Address: 

    Royal College of Art
    1 Hester Rd
    London
    SW11 4AN
    United Kingdom

    Venue Google Map: 

    Click to view on Google Maps

    Links:

    • Call out

    What does arts and humanities research have to offer in our current socio-political climate? This conference for research students takes as its focus the way arts research methods and practices might be put to use in our contemporary moment. We ask, what ‘work’ can a PhD do? By this we do not mean how might our research be instrumentalised or applied, but rather how might it lead our interactions with, and understanding of, the world.

    Call for proposals; 300 word abstracts to be submitted on proforma  downloadable from nafae.org.uk and emailed to admin@nafae.org.uk by  6th January 2019

    Register for the symposium: Eventbrite - LIVING RESEARCH: THE URGENCY OF THE ARTSs

    Hosted by the Royal College of Art, London, the Living Research conference will run six strands of thinking around creative propositions engendered by a single word. The categories; Collaboration, Documents, Entanglement, Environment, Me and Reenactment, are currently in use within the RCA’s School of Arts and Humanities, bringing together researchers across disciplines, developing creative methods to explore terms that demand urgent enquiry. It is hoped they will allow for a wide range of responses, in both content and form.

    Beginning with Environment as both concept and site, we examine its multiplicity, as hostile, or in distress. In Reenactment we explore methods of return, repetitions and copying that often allow a habitation of the past in order to forge future encounters. The pleasures and difficulties of living and working together may be explored in Collaboration and further complicated as a kind of passagenwerk of erotic praxis, artificial intelligences and quantum consciousness in Entanglement. The traces, artefacts and the problematic and violent histories of living with ourselves may be exposed in Documents, taking us through to a spotlight on Me and the slippery subject of subjectivity, with the potential of subversive tactics and shifting, multiple positions and voices.

    • Strand 1: Collaboration
    • Strand 2: Documents
    • Strand 3: Environment
    • Strand 4: Entanglement
    • Strand 5: Me
    • Strand 6: Re-Enactment

     

    The conference is open to all research students in UK and the rest of the world, at any stage of their studies. There is no conference fee but delegates’ institutions should be a member of NAFAE or they should take an individual annual student membership subscription.

    Call for proposals; 300 word abstracts to be submitted on proforma downloadable from nafae.org.uk and emailed to admin@nafae.org.uk by 6th January 2019


    Event Papers: 

    • PDF icon Abstract Submission Proforma
    • PDF icon Conference Flyer
    • PDF icon Conference Poster
    Remarks
    Gallery

    15/03/2019 (All day)

Annual Symposium

  • Making Public: The Fine Art Degree Show

    Making Public: The Fine Art Degree Show

    • Event Details
    • Event Papers

    Annual Conference & AGM

    Friday, 12 April 2019 (All day)

    Event Institution: 

    Leeds Beckett University

    Event Partner: 

    National Association for Fine Art Education

    Event Keynote: 

    Kirsty Ogg (Curator of The New Contemporaries) & Paul Winstanley

    Callout Link: 

    making-public-fine-art-degree-show

    Tags:
    AGM

    Booking website:

    Eventbrite

    This event is free to NAFAE members.

    Event Address: 

    Leeds City Art Gallery
    The Headrow
    Leeds
    LS1 3AA
    United Kingdom

    Venue Google Map: 

    Click to view on Google Maps

    Event Contact Name: 

    Andrew Sheridan

    Event Email:

    admin@nafae.org.uk

    Venue website:

    School of Art, Architecture and Design

    NAFAE's annual symposium is intended as an opportunity to meet, discuss and exchange ideas. We invite short provocations, poster presentations, and 20 minute papers or case studies.

    Call for submissions: abstracts of 200 to 500 words by January 28th, 2019
    Email to admin@nafae.org.uk

    Register for the symposium: Making Public: The Fine Art Degree Show

    As a network we are primarily interested in what and how people are producing and how educators and art practitioners are responding to contemporary challenges and contexts across the sector.

    The keynote/guest speakers are Kirsty Ogg (Curator of The New Contemporaries) talking about the link between degree shows and the New Contemporaries/graduate exhibitions.
    And Paul Winstanley whose book ‘Art School’ documents British Art Schools use of studio and exhibition spaces (usually when empty).

    Most institutions across the UK that offer Fine Art and Art related degree courses have a “degree show” in the form of a final year exhibition; it is frequently perceived as a standard expectation but is it a platform that meets the diverse needs and ambitions of the whole student cohort?
    Are there practices that have successfully incorporated the range of experience that is being pursued across the student body?
    What are the pre-requisites for success or the fulfilment of expectations and how are those metrics impacting on the student condition or their approach to independent learning?
    Are art schools and courses managing the degree show differently at graduate and postgraduate levels?
    Are there alternatives that are being trialled and are they affecting reforms or shifts in the delivery and design of teaching and learning?
    Are we preserving a form of exposition that is constraining learning outcomes?
    Is there a fear of teaching and learning resources being eroded as a consequence of changes in our behaviour as educators?
    Do we sufficiently trust our managers and decision makers in the context of change and shifting requirements or reference points?
    How does the art school or art course represent its regional geography and how is the exposition of final year work influenced by the local socio-economic landscape?

    The ’Degree Show’ is often used as a tool of assessment and sometimes heralded as the event that students spend three years working towards. It is a historical expectation of a Fine Art education and also one that tends to receive endorsement by the institution. It can be a celebration of work. It might be framed by competition or specific expectations of being ‘noticed’ or achieving sales but can it match those expectations?

    A degree show framing of art work may still seek to replicate the white cube though it is more likely to be constrained by the limitations of space and facilities. The very concept of a show or exhibition may not suit all contemporary expanded art practices, where a proportion of students operate in a post-studio context in which interdisciplinary working and collaborative practice are strongly encouraged. Is it appropriate to question the relevance of a degree show in an age where more and more students are moving into post-graduation worlds of working: with context and site, alongside social communities, in response to public realms, through media and on-line environments, or in assistive roles or as facilitators in applied fields.

    Do we need Degree Shows? How representative are they of our context for teaching and developing arts practices for contemporary society?Have they become institutionalised or instrumentalised for what they might offer our institutions in terms of public engagement? Are there alternatives? Has the degree show become outdated/outmoded? Is the ownership still really with the student body and to what degree are exhibitions curated, censored and utilised as marketing material for an increasingly commodified higher education system?

    Contributions are invited on themes including but not limited to:

    • Alternative models of exposition and public engagement
    • Student choice, voice and perspective
    • Sustainability and Resourcing
    • Space makers: The impact of an era of new buildings in UK higher education
    • Relationship of the Degree Show to Teaching, Learning and Assessment
    • Varying notions of display and dissemination
    • Curating and interpretation
    • The role of the University/Art School Gallery
    • Beyond the institution
    • The role of the degree show in supporting graduate outcomes.


    Often, students tell me how much they dread their degree shows; it's not a celebration, but a competition. They've been equipped with a complex set of anxieties but no basic coping strategies, like inviting other people to come or contribute. The function of the degree show is not questioned, they just accept the stupid formats, like VIP breakfasts – why don't you just make tea and toast for everybody?” 2008-2009, BA Fine Art/Contextual Studies, Dartington College of Arts, Devon;

    2009-2010, MA Fine Art, Camberwell College of Arts (UAL). rosalieschweiker.info


    I remember my undergrad degree show feeling like it should stand for everything that I wanted to be as an artist, and for all of the years I had been studying. But in hindsight, it was the very beginning, a sort of testing ground

    Holly Hendry 2013 graduate


    Your degree show – whether at BA (degree) or MA (postgraduate) level – is a valuable opportunity to showcase your work to a wide range of people working in the art world. Curators, writers, other artists, gallery directors and many others visit degree shows as part of their research into artists they might want to work with in the future. It’s important that your show looks its best at all times, and that you are available and contactable in the months following your show.

    Artquest Website 2018

    A crucial early showcase is the art school degree show, which, following the influential example set by Goldsmiths’ Visual Arts Department in the late 1980s, has now become increasingly professional in presentation. The degree show also provides a valuable opportunity for a wider public to have access to challenging contemporary art in its earliest incarnation.

    Louisa Buck (2004) Market Matters


    Remarks
    Gallery

    12/04/2019 (All day)
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