Let’s imagine such a situation: you are a third-grader, you are carrying a banner saying ‘I hate school’. It is twelve metres long and you are carrying it with your entire school and with your teachers that you sometimes really do not like. ... Everybody can see you. The teachers are carrying a banner that says they hate the place where they work. Hierarchy is overthrown. ... It is a contravention. I don’t remember whether something like this happened in my life. I would really like it to have happened, but it never did[1]. Hubert Czerepok

 

In the last decades, visual artists have increased their participation in educational projects. This process illustrates the changes in the way in which cultural institutions throughout the world function. Artists, by enriching educational activities with their creativity and innovativeness, contribute to change in the way in which teaching is perceived as such. This process raises various doubts and questions. Does the artists’ participation in educational projects help creatively transform our society or does it constitute a way of entangling former dissenters in its system? What can artists teach us? What kind of relationship is born among the artists and workshop participants? What seems to be the most interesting is the artists’ attitude towards educational activities undertaken in co-operation with institutions and the degree in which they are engaged in interaction with art consumers. In order to analyse these issues, I talked with several artists with whom I had the opportunity to work during MOCAK projects and asked them about education.

 

What artists can teach us?

Some time ago, Emily Pringle, an artist and educator, undertook a similar project. Pringle interviewed several artists educating, among other places, in Tate Modern. She asked them which of their skills make them consider themselves to be artists. Rather than mentioning technical skills, the artists talked about their ability to create new meanings. With regard to their educational projects, they underlined the role of reflection, critical thinking, analysis, interpretation and reorganisation of knowledge. The main goal of the events in which they participated was to exchange ideas and collectively generate knowledge that individual participants would not have been able to arrive at on their own. The teaching model differed from the traditional one in which active and passive roles are distributed once and for all. The roles of the teacher and pupil were divided among participants, and the group relied on common experience. Pringle claims that there is a difference between the knowledge of art historians (with its information-oriented, generalising nature) and the knowledge of artists. In the case of the latter, it is connected with the practical aspects of creation and the individual experience of the artist. According to Pringle, artists can develop the audience’s ability to question the cultural status quo. They share their knowledge through exchange while doing something together, which leads to the increasing involvement of the audience and transforms their attitudes and the way in which they perceive contemporary art[2].

Opportunity, not duty?

Most of the artists I talked with raised similar issues. There were however some more sceptical opinions. Monika Drozynska, whose project Embroider Yourself we hosted in MOCAK in October 2011, said, ‘I never feel like an educating person; I could even say I hate this term. I always appear as an artist, a designer of a certain situation in which people can participate or not. Just like the artist can engage in contemporary art education but does not have to’. This view is shared by Malgorzata Markiewicz (in August 2011 she met with the participants of the workshop Women’s History, My History). ‘I have mixed feelings as to whether artists should be involved in education; there is no rule. Personal predispositions are important. If their ‘creative path’ needs that, then OK. I think the trend that requires artists and art to open up to the society and conduct educational and socially-engaged projects and workshops is dangerous. They should have the opportunity to do so, not a duty’.

 

Another dimension of education

Other artists were more inclined to talk about the benefits of engaging artists in projects that involved interacting with the public. According to Mikolaj Rejs, the author of the mural at Kacik Street in Krakow, painted in co-operation with teenagers, such projects help the artist to refer to their own work. In his opinion, when artists pass on knowledge directly to the audience, it is the most reliable way of teaching about contemporary art with regard to their activities. ‘Organising additional classes with artists creates a different dimension of education, where the audience meet with tangible problems and experience the full image of the creative process’. Mikolaj Rejs also admits that meeting with the audience can be beneficial to the artist. ‘I really enjoyed the workshops that I participated in. The opportunity to share my experience imparted a bigger value to what I do. I think that these two roles (of an artist and an educator) should be connected, and in some cases it is just necessary. It is good when artists share their knowledge and educators can find fulfilment artistically. Also Bartosz Kokosinski, with whom I co-led the student workshop History Can Be Broken Down into Images Rather than Stories, thinks that the role of an educator and an artist are separate but not mutually exclusive. ‘Well, the artists themselves need to learn and they can use their own observations in this respect, and I know that they quite often complain about teaching methods. I think that the artists, in their work, should explore, try and risk, and as educators they should encourage others to take risks and to go beyond the popular manner of thinking about works of art’.

 

Visiting the world together

Agnieszka Piksa (who led the workshop History of the Comic Strip, History in the Comic Strip and created the educational insert presented in the second issue of ‘MOCAK Forum’) and Marta Sala (her works are presented in this issue) are declared supporters of engaging artists in education, and not only with regard to museums. According to Piksa, ‘Our system is what it is and artists give it hope. I know from experience that children provide creative and interesting answers to the questions asked by artists. The situation gets worse, however, when parents interfere and tell them what to do. Parents think that you can do something right, that you can learn something, and this is the only appropriate way of approaching a given problem. Artists are a kind of mediators between children and adults; they serve as tricksters, someone who does a lot of tricks and in this way reveals the true system of their ‘village’, in which they will always be a bit of an eccentric and a stranger. Artists teach how to be prepared to various disappointments connected with knowledge and development. They show us that we will never in fact be truly adult. Only we can decide whether we will keep a child’s fresh and open mind or whether we will reject it’. The artist is simultaneously a guide and someone who got lost, who is searching. Therefore, as Agnieszka Piksa explains, ‘they can teach us how to find the order of reality on your own, the order that only happens in the here and now, right in front of your eyes. You need to react as fast as possible’. The artist can tell you that ‘you are also a mystery, that someone may explain stuff to you but this will only be relevant to a certain system’. The educational model characteristic to industrial societies must, according to Piksa, be changed, because it was created in response to very different social conditions. ‘School curricula should include more art, and teaching should be considered as visiting the world together’.

 

Responsibility for what is common

Marta Sala, similarly to Agnieszka Piksa, thinks that ‘artist may have a much better influence on children because they are open, they approach seemingly obvious matters in a fresh way, they co-create the programme instead of imposing it’. She is against ‘the rigid school in which teachers impose anything’. According to her, ‘Education is not only about passing on information. This is not the most important thing; there are so many ways of acquiring information. What is crucial is educating towards independence and discovering your own interests, and artists inspire others to discover themselves anew and to think independently’. She also points out that there is a difference between an artist and a theorist. ‘Artists, contrary to art historians, are very practical, they can do a lot of things, their knowledge can be applied, and this is what schools lack. Their knowledge is passed on through action which results in a certain creation, an idea changes into something real. A project supported by an artist may develop to such dimensions that young people will participate in the creation of public space, they will no longer be anonymous and therefore society will become more responsible, and the space will become our common property. Classes in the Polish school lack this follow up, they do not teach participation in the real world, only after long years do they let you actually do something’.

 

This is not an educational project?

The artists that I talked with signalled only some of the problems and hopes connected with their presence in the area of educational activities. The reflection upon the relationship between educating and creating is tied to our concrete ideas on what art could be and what education is. There is a certain reluctance towards using the word ‘educational’ in relation to projects carried out by artists in co-operation with their audiences. There is no agreement as to whether an event that includes both an artist and an audience can meet educational and artistic criteria at the same time or if they are mutually exclusive. Agnieszka Tarasiuk, writing about the Contemporary Art Gallery for Children, said that, ‘It is a project carried out in Wigry by renowned artists in co-operation with local children and teenagers. It is not an educational project, there were no lectures or meetings. We realised several joint artistic actions’[3]. This quotation shows that teaching itself is associated with a non-creative ‘transmission’ of knowledge from the teacher to the pupil, just like at a lecture. In the case of creative actions we are dealing with an entirely different sphere. The word ‘educational’ seems to suggest that there is a superior goal to which art ‘has to’ adapt, and we are used to thinking that ‘true’ art must be purely authotelic. To my mind, however, thinking about the needs of other people and helping them grow does not demolish the sanctuary that is art. The educational projects that I appreciate the most are the ones in which the artist treats co-operation with the audience as part of their creative path, while still knowing that they are actually doing something for others. The activities undertaken by such an ‘educator’ do not negate what is childish and immature, although it does not mean that they necessarily have to be geared towards children. At the same time, educational activities can but do not have to take on the form of an artistic enterprise. Creating something with artists is the best way of learning about art. On reflection though I need to add that maybe it only concerns a certain aspect of art.

 

The loss of a phantasm

Educational projects do not always have the chance to take on a form of an extensive, interactive activity. On the other hand, the sheer fact that artists take over the floor helps the audience understand the world of art as it becomes more real. There is still a widespread misconception that artists have little in common with the ordinary people in the street and that art takes the audience on a journey into unknown areas with little to say about the real life. Regardless of whether we put art up on a pedestal or treat it us some kind of an oddity, it always constitutes a ‘foreign body’. When asked about the importance of knowledge acquired when talking with artists, Artur Zmijewski said that, ‘The society sees the artists as a shaman, a master, a colourful bird, a bit of a maniac really, someone who is always sick with some kind of persistent fever. Of course this is only a socially-produced phantasm. And this all-pervasive phantasm protects the society from a true meeting with art. On the other hand, it also protects artists from taking real responsibility for their work’[4].

Meetings with artist modify this interpretation framework. It turns out that the artist can also be someone ‘that is just like other people, a little bit helpless in facing the world. A bit of an ignorant with gaps in basic education, sometimes a person that just like many other people is unable to listen to others and does not know or understand much. A bit of a clerk, writing grant applications, a bit of a conformist smiling at people who have to power to decide on his or her fate’[5]. Saying that artists are also people deprives them of their godlike image but it also opens up the possibility of dialogue. Art can be construed not so much as something that opposes the society, an ‘idiotic pretence’, but rather as a tool that actually refers to the society[6]. In other words, by talking with artists we can see that their art is inspired by the reality that they share with the audience.

 

[1] Hubert Czerepok’s comment on the workshop he had with teenagers within the scope of the project Contemporary Art Gallery for Children. Cf. Wiecej wolnosci / Mniej wolnosci. Rozmowa Elzbiety Mlynarczyk z Hubertem Czerepokiem, in: Galeria Sztuki Wspolczesnej dla Dzeci?, Dom Pracy Tworczej, Wigry [2009], p. 23.

2 Cf. E. Pringle, The Artist-Led Pedagogic Process in the Contemporary Art Gallery: Developing a Meaning Making Framework, ‘International Journal of Art Design Education’ 2009, vol. 28, issue 2; idem, The Artist as Educator: Examining Relationships between Art Practice and Pedagogy in the Gallery Context, ‘Tate Paper Issue’ 2009, no. 11, http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/09spring/emily-pringle.shtm [retrieved: 27^th Jan 2012]; idem, ‘We Did Stir Things Up’: The Role of Artists in Sites for Learning, http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/documents/publications/phpShHUNy.pdf [retrieved: 27^th March 2012]

3 A. Tarasiuk, Wstep, in: Galeria Sztuki Wspolczesnej dla Dzieci?, op.cit., p. 4.

⁴ Wstep. Z Arturem Zmijewskim rozmawia Sebastian Cichocki, in: A. Zmijewski, Drzace ciala. Rozmowy z artystami, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, Warsaw 2008, p. 8

⁵ Ibid., p. 9-10.

⁶ Ibid., p. 9.

Elzbieta Sala (born 1984) – graduated from political sciences at the University of Rzeszow and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University where she is currently a Ph.D. student. Manages MOCAK’s education department and co-leads the Women’s Museum project.