Academic Sessions: London 2008
Situating Gallery Education
Session Convenors:
Felicity Allen, Head of Interpretation & Education, Tate Britain
Veronica Sekules, Head of Education & Research, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA v.sekules@uea.ac.uk
Speakers:
Nick Addison (Institute of Education, University of London) The Artwork as Interlocutor: Gallery education for schools
Amaia Arriaga (Universidad Pública de Navarra (UPNA), Spain) Gallery Educators and the Interpretation of Works of Art
Janna Graham (Goldsmiths College, University of London) Un-role-ing the Educational Role of the Museum: Toward a radical diplomacy?
Kimberly Keith (Goldsmiths College, University of London) Towards a Critical Museum Practice
Declan McGonagle (University of Ulster) Negotiation and Reciprocation in the Making of Another Art
Janice McLaren (The Photographers’ Gallery) …what could be necessary?
Carmen Mörsch (University of the Arts, Zurich) Governmentality and Critical Practice: Reviewing the history of gallery education in England
Emily Pringle, The Artist as Educator: Examining relationships between art practice and pedagogy in the gallery context
Rebecca Sinker (Tate Britain)and Victoria de Rijke (Middlesex University) Taking Play Seriously
Sally Tallant (Serpentine Gallery) Experiments in Integrated Programming
Jill Strauss (University of Ulster) What More is Going on in this Picture?: The Gallery as a space for peace and conflict resolution education in Northern Ireland
Elena Stylianou (University of London) On Inner Immensity: The Pedagogical potential of the gallery space
Session Abstract:
In the last two decades, gallery education has proliferated in the UK, the US and Australia, as well as parts of Europe. As an emerging and hybrid discipline, it has been documented but is only rarely the subject of academic research or critical review. Art historians and critics largely continue to distinguish its site-located work from art works and festivals undertaken by artists and curators (e.g. Thomas Hirschhorn or Manifesta 2006) which work, to varying degrees, in parallel forms.
Staffed by a mix of artists, academics (including art historians), writers, curators, teachers and youth workers, gallery education reflects and borrows from a wide range of disciplines. These include, amongst others, neuroscientific research and learning theories; fine art practice, art history and art theory; digital and interactive technologies and theories. Its positions/locations in the institutions that host it vary and are rarely static, from supporting and extending a formal educational or academic agenda, to community politics; from corporate social responsibility to radical social work; from philanthropy to critiquing the museum; to commissioning and displaying art.
While responding to public policy developments, gallery education in this country originally developed from a mix of early post-modern participatory or situationist art practices developed by artists within the critical, theoretical and exhibiting infrastructures of the fine art system; community arts strategies; and the historic and continuing discipline of museum education. Its relations with these areas are reciprocal.
This session proposes to begin, for the first time, to locate gallery education as part of a wider participatory and critical cultural shift that frames significant theoretical questions across the museum, the studio and the academy. We aim to investigate the relevance of creating or extending a theoretical framework to include and represent gallery education in the 21st-century art museum.
Felicity Allen, Head of Interpretation & Education, Tate Britain
Veronica Sekules, Head of Education & Research, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA v.sekules@uea.ac.uk
Speakers:
Nick Addison (Institute of Education, University of London) The Artwork as Interlocutor: Gallery education for schools
Amaia Arriaga (Universidad Pública de Navarra (UPNA), Spain) Gallery Educators and the Interpretation of Works of Art
Janna Graham (Goldsmiths College, University of London) Un-role-ing the Educational Role of the Museum: Toward a radical diplomacy?
Kimberly Keith (Goldsmiths College, University of London) Towards a Critical Museum Practice
Declan McGonagle (University of Ulster) Negotiation and Reciprocation in the Making of Another Art
Janice McLaren (The Photographers’ Gallery) …what could be necessary?
Carmen Mörsch (University of the Arts, Zurich) Governmentality and Critical Practice: Reviewing the history of gallery education in England
Emily Pringle, The Artist as Educator: Examining relationships between art practice and pedagogy in the gallery context
Rebecca Sinker (Tate Britain)and Victoria de Rijke (Middlesex University) Taking Play Seriously
Sally Tallant (Serpentine Gallery) Experiments in Integrated Programming
Jill Strauss (University of Ulster) What More is Going on in this Picture?: The Gallery as a space for peace and conflict resolution education in Northern Ireland
Elena Stylianou (University of London) On Inner Immensity: The Pedagogical potential of the gallery space
Session Abstract:
In the last two decades, gallery education has proliferated in the UK, the US and Australia, as well as parts of Europe. As an emerging and hybrid discipline, it has been documented but is only rarely the subject of academic research or critical review. Art historians and critics largely continue to distinguish its site-located work from art works and festivals undertaken by artists and curators (e.g. Thomas Hirschhorn or Manifesta 2006) which work, to varying degrees, in parallel forms.
Staffed by a mix of artists, academics (including art historians), writers, curators, teachers and youth workers, gallery education reflects and borrows from a wide range of disciplines. These include, amongst others, neuroscientific research and learning theories; fine art practice, art history and art theory; digital and interactive technologies and theories. Its positions/locations in the institutions that host it vary and are rarely static, from supporting and extending a formal educational or academic agenda, to community politics; from corporate social responsibility to radical social work; from philanthropy to critiquing the museum; to commissioning and displaying art.
While responding to public policy developments, gallery education in this country originally developed from a mix of early post-modern participatory or situationist art practices developed by artists within the critical, theoretical and exhibiting infrastructures of the fine art system; community arts strategies; and the historic and continuing discipline of museum education. Its relations with these areas are reciprocal.
This session proposes to begin, for the first time, to locate gallery education as part of a wider participatory and critical cultural shift that frames significant theoretical questions across the museum, the studio and the academy. We aim to investigate the relevance of creating or extending a theoretical framework to include and represent gallery education in the 21st-century art museum.