Strand

Exclusion Conference

Educational Exclusion

Educational Exclusion Strand

Thursday November 16, 10.00–17.00 in the HDK Baula

Educational Exclusion: arts and design education and cultural institutions aim for
diversity, yet remain homogenous in their staffing, often in their student body, in their understanding and promotion of aesthetics, and in their view of knowledge.
Educational exclusion addresses mono-cultural aspects of arts education as well as
proposes how education in the arts can be fundamentally reshaped to become more
accountable to manifold embodied knowledge practices.

  • 10.00–10.10 HDK Baula
    Introduction
  • 10.15–11.45 HDK Baula
    Three presentations followed by joint discussion:

Explicit and Tacit Exclusionism
Deborah Jackson, Lecturer in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice, Director of Equalities, University of Edinburgh.

Film as research tool – how can we address socio-political and cultural exclusion?
Jyoti Mistry, Professor and Deputy Head of Film and Television, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Linda Sternö, Senior lecturer Film and Klara Björk, Lecturer and Deputy Head of Film, both at University of Gothenburg.

Make Believe: thinking, ranting, struggling and musing about making
Jessica Hemmings, Professor, Assistant Head of Academy of Design and Crafts, University of Gothenburg.

Moderators of this session are Lory Dance, Associate Professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies at the UNL, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Henk Slager, Professor of Artistic Research at HKU Utrecht University of the Artsand and Dean of the MaHKU, Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design and Onkar Kular, Professor in Design Interventions at HDK, Academy of Design and Crafts, Gothenburg University.

  • 12.00–12.45 HDK Baula
    Exclusion of Equality and the Education of Differences
    Hongjohn Lin, Artist, Writer, Curator and Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts.
  • 12.45–14.00 Lunch break
  • 14.00–15.00 HDK Baula
    Two presentations followed by joint discussion:

Exclusion from inside out: The intersectional working of class in artistic education
Sophie Vögele, research associate at the IAE, Institute for Art Education, ZHdK, Zurich University of the Arts.

Memories of exclusion and a platform to make our voices be heard
Min Jeong Ko and Finn Chung from the artist group Globala tanter (Global Aunties). Their Bio reads: We are cooks, theorists, mothers, artists, transnationalists, and not-yet-made-it-there immigrants. We want to combat the silently shrugged world through your stomachs and hearts.

Moderators of this session are Hongjohn Lin, Artist, Writer, Curator and Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts, Zahra Bayati, Senior Lecturer at Department of Education, Communication, University of Gotehnburg and Learning and Henric Benesch, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in Design, University of Gothenburg.

  • 15.15–16.00 HDK Baula
    Nude Ninja
    Lory Dance, Associate Professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies at the UNL, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
  • 16.15–17.00 HDK Baula
    Joint closing discussion

 

Abstracts

Film as a research tool

Klara Björk, Jyoti Mistry and Klara Björk

To address socio-political and cultural exclusion, present in current film programmes, means also finding strategies through film education to address diversity and representation. Through the images produced in film education, we need to constructively address methods and conventions in our own field that will enable and encourage inclusive filmic strategies that confront different forms of exclusion in contemporary society.

Film has been appropriated in many disciplines: anthropology (visual ethnography), medicine, social justice and human rights programmes, also in numerous fields in the social sciences where its primary use is as an instrument to document: as a technique for recording as opposed to a method of interrogation. In other words, film is principally seen as a recording device rather than as a mode and a form that is capable of determining meaning in and of itself – as a structure for creating meaning through form not just as a vehicle for content.

This presentation proposes a new and innovative form of bringing film practice and pedagogy in relation to the socio-cultural issues of migration and global displacements of communities. This approach further functions in the film education curriculum for “unlearning” conventions of filmmaking. We will present examples from the exchange programme between film educations at the Wits School of Arts (Witswatersrand University) in Johannesburg and Valand Academy, Göteborg.

 

Intermission: Exclusion of Equality and the Education of Differences

Hongjohn Lin

Joseph Jacotot’s universal teaching, through never widely applicable, is an implicit value in modern education that regards intelligences as created equal, precisely because democratic societies are founded in the very principle of equality. Jacques Rancière has drawn the parallel line between the political and the educational to recognise that equality of intelligence is a necessary pre-condition for a society, as its Latin root socius suggests, as friendship and companiability.

For Rancière , the claim of Jacotot’s as an emancipatory method in liberating one’s mind and creativity is not only a break of the hierarchy between teachers and students, but also a genealogical investigation on the masses, which has become a significant question especially after the 1968 movement. Equality is the alpha and omega of the aesthetic revolution – the ultimate stage of social changes – and it is set as a priori and telos as well in realising a utopian society where individuals can be free at will, which is correspondent to Joseph Beuys’ claim that “everyone is an artist.”The exclusion of equality in education systems, especially in art education, can immediately depart from the deeply held assumption that equality and equity serve as a basis for society.

In reality, however, all institutions, including art schools, facilitate the building managerial systems, staff members, and the student body, that all together emphasise partitions and stratifications operating in social and economic capital.

 

Exclusion from inside out: The intersectional working of class in artistic education

Sophie Vögele

Our broad inquiry into the access to learning and formation experience in art schools showed a rigorous inclusionary and exclusionary process at work: Indeed, described as a “preserve of the privileged” (Malik Okon 2005) in international research, a complex and differentiated picture of inclusivity and exclusivity can be found in higher art education. The thorough selection process together with the openness of artistic criteria actually continuously re-instates a very specific norm within art schools. This normativity proves to be uncontested and thus naturalises the processes of inclusion and exclusion.

Such exclusion on the basis of a continuous normalisation works from inside out and is marked by an intersectional working of class with race, gender and the body from a Eurocentric stance. These findings inevitably evoke the search for ways to challenge this exclusionary order. Thus, the aim of our paper is twofold:

a) the dynamics of maintenance, perpetuation and continued re-instatement of inclusion and exclusion within institutional structures are elaborated alongside

b) the questioning of and potential transformative intervention into these structures.

We thereby take up the thread from the Let’s Mobilize: What is Feminist Pedagogy event held in October 2016 at Valand Academy and tie into this the research of Art.School.Differences, a cooperation project between three Swiss art schools with a trans-disciplinary approach.

 

Make Believe: thinking, ranting, struggling and musing about making

Jessica Hemmings

In our current era of post-truth politics the legitimate power of storytelling risks erosion as a valid form of communication. Stories undeniably wield power. In fact the more overlooked their genre, the more potent they have the potential to be. But the legitimacy of the story and its emotive strategies are often rejected by conventional academic discourse. Stories are not without their controversy, but from human rights abuses to academic silos the inclusion of storytelling can play a pivotal role in dialogues that may otherwise face exclusion.

This presentation asks where stories may find purpose in the developing discourse of craft scholarship and education. Craft as an emerging scholarly field shares much in common with previous decades’ development of postcolonial thinking within literary studies. Instead of acting out the poor relation of fine art or design education, craft must build discourse that captures the lived concerns of the discipline without reliance on existing but ill-fitting models. Crucially, if craft scholarship is to avoid alienating the constituents at its very core it must be pertinent rather than peripheral to the practitioner.

 

Nude Ninja

Lory Dance

Intersectionality theory reveals how human beings are shaped by multiple interlocking social identities, for example gender, class, ‘race’/ethnicity, sexuality, migration status, ability, and so on. The Nude Ninja game reveals how interlocking identities may matter even for a “ninja” in the nude. Come, play, and laugh while also having sobering discussions about intersectionality. (And, yes, we will all play with our clothes on!)

 

Globala Tanter

Our main purpose is to pull up each other and provide a platform to make our voices be heard. We learned that we are stronger when we work together, and we are going to be bigger by including other women’s stories and experiences in the same time that we are networking and meeting and presenting ourselves in public spaces. Our ways are to use different kinds of artistic expressions using socialising around food, making films with different stories, organising a niche film festival, and working with people having similar experiences. We are not waiting to be invited into the public space! We are going to claim it by ourselves.

Even though we wanted to make a social community project, driven by problem-based grass root initiatives, after more than one year’s activities, we have encountered challenges. We believe that this is part of development of our project. During our presentation we will look back on our past and present. This opportunity will lead us to go a little forward, by discussing challenges in our community building.