The three major strands are:
A) Art as Entrepreneurs
B) The Politics of Performance
C) The Hidden Curriculum
Strand A: Artists as Entrepreneurs?
ARTISTS AS ENTREPRENEURS?
Alternative Zones: Uncovering the Official and the Unofficial in Fine Art Practice, Research and Education
Convenors:
Ana Garcia Lopez, Professor, Faculty of Fine Arts, Granada University
Maia Rosa Mancuso, Professor Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo
In many ways, the creation of art captures the essence of entrepreneurial activity […] It involves intellectual and practical development of the art idea, […] as well as interaction with external observers to make novel ideas accessible to the intended audience.(Mikael Scherdin and Ivo Zander, Art Entrepreneurship, Uppsala University, Sweden. 2011).
Despite there being similarities between creative work and entrepreneurial activities, they have rarely been connected.
- Should art education be more focused on making art as entrepreneurship?
- Are art higher education institutions across Europe answering the needs of emerging artists?
- Should the teaching of entrepreneurship be considered an ethical instructional imperative in times of mass unemployment? Are teachers equipped to undertake this instruction?
- In the globalized world, do young artists have the skills to self promote and be visible in the art arena?
- Are new forms of promotion through social media disrupting traditional hierarchies between the artists and their promoters?
- Are social critical issues profitable? What are the models for entrepreneurship that engage beyond market dynamic?
The Artist as Entrepreneur? strand calls for papers that explore the complex ways Fine Art education in Europe is dealing with this issue particularly how it relates to notions of the official and unofficial. It is interested to explore the strengths and weakness in this area across countries in and outside institutions.
The convenors of this strand welcome case studies, strategies, suggestions, opinions and reflective articles about the proposed topics. We are happy to receive abstracts for contributions as presentations, pecha-kucha, articles, round tables or workshops.
Please email a 300 word abstract in English for academic papers, presentations or workshops with the subject heading ‘Paradox Poznan’ by the 30th April 2015 to:
agarcial@ugr.es and maia.mancuso@virgilio.it
Strand B: The Politics of Performance
POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE
Alternative Zones: Uncovering the Official and the Unofficial in Fine Art Practice, Research and Education
Convenors:
Christina Della Guistina, Professor of Fine Art, HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, NL
Stephanie James, Professor and Director of the School of Art, Syracuse University
Performance has a unique history in Eastern Europe. It was often born out political situations and social upheaval in the earlier part of the 20C. Tadeusz Kantor, a Polish artist, created an underground experimental theatre in Kraków and eventually practiced as a performance artist provoking ideas on denial and the disappearance of substance.
This strand seeks to explore the artist’s desire to act: to embody the work, and in doing so to experiment with space, time and materials. Poznan is the stage on which this strand brings together performance and experiment.
We propose to define performance through a series of artistic experiments/presentations to mark its value and significance in fine art education and fine art practice through the following tangents:
- Performance as topic: what constitutes a performance, both official and unofficial?
- Performativity as a method for making art: how do we experiment through performance?
- Performance as a research environment: how and where in our academies do experiments happen?
Questions that may be explored:
Which institutional conditions have to be met to perform, discuss, perceive, and realize performance?
What are the effects, the consequences, and the results of experiments in performance for its participants, the academy they take place in, and society at large? Should ‘delivery’ as a teacher and a learner constantly be revised through experimentation to better engage our audiences? When is performance ‘official’ and when is it ‘unofficial’ and what are the benefits in each?
This strand calls for participants to contribute to understanding the value of performance in Fine Art education encompassing a broad spectrum from performance art works to the methodologies in pedagogy. The strand welcomes proposals for live and recorded performances and reflections, as well as presentations of papers, group workshops and artistic activities in all kinds of formats.
Please email a 300 word abstract in English for academic papers, presentations or workshops with the subject heading ‘Paradox Poznan’ by the 30th April 2015 to:
dg_c@hotmail.com and sljames@syr.edu
Strand C: The Hidden Curriculum
THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM
Alternative Zones: Uncovering the Official and the Unofficial in Fine Art Practice, Research and Education
Convenors:
Rebecca Fortnum, Professor of Fine Art, Middlesex University, London
Christine Pybus, Lecturer, CIT Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork Ireland
The Hidden Curriculum Strand Schedule
Thursday 10th
2-3:20pm The changing institution (art schools, education, disciplines)
3:40–5pm Professional Practice (transitions outside & inside the institution)
5:20–6pm Changing face of Assessments
Friday 11th
10–12 New knowledge economies & technologies
12–1pm feedback & discussion
In his essay Art Education in Poland – between Jurassic Park and the ‘catering regime’ Marek Wasilewski observes,
In recent years our institutions have gone through several reforms introduced to make our work more objective and efficient. As a result, instead of spending our time with students, lecturers have to attend meetings and courses, and produce reports and applications; it seems to me that the report is now more important than what happens in real life. In some respects, it reminds me of the ‘good old days of communism’, where bureaucracy was the God of all things, when things written on paper and decided on in an important meeting were confused with real achievements. (Wasliewski, Journal of Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education 2014, 13.1)
This description of the art educator juggling the, often contradictory, needs of students and mangers may be recognised by those working in Higher Education throughout Europe. One of the particular challenges for the teaching of fine art is to keep a productive and critical dynamic between the subject and the academy. Currently this is problematised by, on the one hand radical shifts in recent fine art practice in relation to its materials, institutions and audience, and on the other the standardisation of Higher Education provision in accordance with the EU Bologna process. In response to these demands the fine art curriculum has become crammed with so called ‘choice’ yet the student experience can run the risk of being compromised by a highly regulated, risk averse environment. The Hidden Curriculum strand calls for papers that will build on work begun at the last Paradox conference, mapping the position of Fine Art Education in Europe, in particular the content of the subject’s curriculum and how it is delivered.
The convenors of this strand welcome responses from fine art educators, artists in education and academics that examine the teaching of Fine Art and the challenges of attempts to be both accountable yet responsive. We are interested in hearing about subversive pedagogical strategies as well as accounts of delivering an undercover curriculum. We are happy to receive abstracts for case studies, opinion papers and reflective articles from those who have developed creative, innovative and reflective responses to the curriculum and teaching delivery.
Please email a 300 word abstract in English for academic papers, presentations or workshops with the subject heading ‘Paradox Poznan’ by the 30th April 2015 to: