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Introduction - Artist as Educator

Emily Pringle

It is very exciting to be here at the start of these symposia. I think they are particularly timely and I was struck by the title given to them: 'Interrupt' as I like the idea that we are engaged in a process of disruption. The OED gives as a definition of the verb to interrupt: 'To act so as to prevent from proceeding continuously' and 'to break the continuity of'. The emphasis here is on calling a momentary halt so as to examine and question the role of the artist within socially engaged practice broadly and, specifically over the next 24 hours, the role of the artist as educator. In light of that we have been given two particular questions to focus on:

Good questions, but hardly easy to answer. For, apart from anything else, the area loosely defined as socially engaged practice is vast and complex. It has a rich and long history, which can sometimes get forgotten (which is why it is so fortunate that we have Barbara Stevini with us, as the work of the Artists Placement Group is particularly relevant here). It has been informed by and, I would argue, mistaken for numerous other practices including Education, with a capital E, social work, political activism and psychology. And it embraces a huge range of activities, each with their own set of intentions, processes and outcomes; from work that has a more overtly educational, social or political agenda to work that, albeit participatory, involves artists exploring their own particular issues for that end alone. One of the problems with this practice has arisen from a temptation to lump it all together - it's all art with people, when it is clearly more complex than that. But it is equally problematic to circumscribe and pigeonhole aspects of the practice, since boundaries are blurred and artists may well engage in projects that are more or less educational, for example, at different stages of their career.

What is apparent is that socially engaged practice is gaining a higher profile and attracting interest, not only from within the artworld. Educationalists and policy makers have turned their attention to the transformative nature of creativity and the role the arts can play in tackling social exclusion. The unique skills of artists and their ability to develop creative skills in others form the basis for the government's Creative Partnerships initiative, which is co-ordinated by the Arts Council, and is currently in its first phase. Again, I look forward to hearing Maria talking about the role of the artist within the context of Birmingham's Creative Partnerships work.

But, although it is a positive step that reports such as the Robinson Report All our futures (NACCCE,1999) or the PAT10 report (DCMS, 1999), both of which were published in 1999, recognise and promote the contribution that artists can make within educational and community settings, and that money is being made available to support artists working in education, there is a need to separate the rhetoric from the reality. The research into Arts Council's Artists in Sites for Leaning scheme, was prompted in part by a concern at the lack of detailed research to support the claims being made for artists' work in these arenas. In particular there appeared to exist limited research into the first of the questions being posed today: What is the nature of artists' engagement with participants? Whilst at the same time Ofsted, for example, felt able in 1998 to state:

There is a growing body of evidence and testimony to indicate that the work of artists in schools and colleges enhances the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom and makes a significant contribution to the quality of school life.
- Oddie and Allen, 1998

The research into the Artists in Sites for Learning scheme was, therefore, an attempt to understand the specific contribution that artists make and, in particular, to explore the forms of engagement that occur between artists and participants. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the scheme, it supports visual artists and aims to extend educational practice and promote access, enjoyment and learning to diverse groups of participants. The scheme has funded projects in, for example, hospitals, FE colleges and a range of schools, and involved a wide variety of participants including school pupils, travellers groups, hospital patients and community organisations.

The use of the terms forms of engagement was significant, as early on in the research it became clear that a conventional understanding of the term teaching- where expert knowledge and skills are transmitted from an active teacher to largely passive learners - was not adequate in these contexts. I would like to return to this issue of our understanding of teaching and learning later, but meanwhile, what emerged from the research is a picture of a complex and multifaceted form of creative practice.

The research was based around a series of interviews with artists, all of whom had completed an Artists in Sites for Learning project. It must be stressed, therefore, that it focused on artists who already possessed an interest in this blend of creative and pedagogic practice. With that in mind, the research identified what I consider are key issues in relation to how and what artists do, which may help to inform our exploration of the first question here:

What also emerged from the research was why these artists work in this creative and critically reflective way with participants. These artists adopt this approach with participants, because that is how they see the process of making art - the critical and conceptual element of the creative process is crucial. In other words, art making is about articulating issues and visual problem-solving. When working with participants, these artists draw on their own education, training, and ongoing creative activities, in order to engage and inspire participants in order that those participants can explore their own ideas. This is not to say that an artist's creative practice and their education practice were one and the same (although in some cases it was), but that the same rigour and level of critical enquiry was brought to both. As one of the artists interviewed said:

I like the relationship I build with the students and I enjoy the journey. It has parallels to developing ones own practice, where there is a sense that you've never arrived, you're always pushing it, always on a journey.

This is how and why these artists perceive they are able to engage with participants - they are not there to provide fixed answers or solutions, but to share their knowledge and skills, learn from the others participating, and explore and develop concepts and processes. It is a unique and sophisticated form of engagement.

But there is still the difficult issue raised by the second question posed today: How do we value engagement within art practice? As the status of the artist within educational contexts appears to be growing, is it possible to identify a commensurate rise in the status of this form of practice within the art world? I am not so sure. A very honest and telling quote from one of the artists interviewed for the research indicated a real dilemma that remains unresolved:

That was the point at which we took it back and I think that's one of the things that we were clear about from the start. We weren't trying to make something where we said we are all artists in that universal sense. We were coming into it saying we're professionals. We want to work with you, but it's not automatically going to make you into an artist.

They went on to say that the reason why, after 'listening carefully to what people were saying when they were making it' they 'took it back' was:

We were incredibly conscious that we wanted it to be viewed by an art audience and to do that it had to conform to some of the conventions of an artwork in order for it to be looked at seriously in that way.

This touches on the thorny issue of quality and how this practice and the outcomes it produces are judged as good in the context of art practice. For, as was apparent to the artist quoted above, if the work is to be valued by an art audience, the relationship between the process, the collaboration between the artist and the participants and the presentation of the final product is inevitably altered. How then should this engaged art practice be valued? Should we, the art audience, be basing our judgments on the quality of the finished item, the nature of the enquiry evident within it, or should we be judging it in terms of the meanings it generates for participants, the artists or the audiences?

Very briefly there are two issues I would like to raise in relation to this. The first concerns our understanding of the role of the artist. In the recently published Art in Question (Raney, K, 2003) Grizelda Pollock identifies a move to reclaim the singularity of the artist and their practice, albeit with an awareness of the dangers of slipping into unreconstructed modernist notions of the artist as uniquely gifted genius. I think this is an interesting and realistic acknowledgement that artists do possess a particular approach to articulating the visual. But am concerned as to how to reconcile this recognition of the specificity of individual creative practice with the model of socially engaged practice, since the latter, particularly in an educational context, requires the artist to actively enter into dialogue with participants and subjugate their individual vision in order to work towards generating shared knowledge. In this respect socially engaged practice seems to embody a post-modern understanding of the artist as a participant in a process of meaning making that is less authorial, or even singular, and more dialogic. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why valuing it remains so problematic?

The second point concerns our experience and understanding of education. Interestingly it emerged from the Artists in Sites for Learning research that the pedagogic method adopted by some of the artists - that of dialogue based, experiential and collaborative learning, with the artist/teacher functioning as role model, mentor and guide is one they had experienced at art school. But at the same time, the artists' perceptions of school-based education was that of a system dominated by curriculum, timetables and the need for fixed outcomes that left little scope for teachers to engage in creative teaching. The recent government Green paper Culture and Creativity the next ten years' does state that one of the governments key objectives if for education and the need to ensure, both in the formal school system and also through life that artistic creativity forms a central part of what is offered as the learning experience. (DCMS, 2001). But with schools, and the arts within them, under such pressure to deliver results, it is more essential than ever that the creative and pedagogical activities that artists engage in within educational contexts are recognized for what they are. It is important to ensure that socially engaged practice does not get co-opted into becoming an alternative way of delivering the curriculum and that its unique status as a form of art practice is valued appropriately.

Emily Pringle, May 2003.

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