Vol. 12 No. 1 (2016)

NOTE- only the abstracts are available on this site. InSEA members may access the full contents at the members area of www.insea.org.

EDITORIAL

Author: Glen Coutts

Pages 3–5

ARTICLES

The cemetery as a site for aesthetic enquiry in Art Education

Author: Ricard Huerta

Pages: 7–20

Abstract
This article aims to introduce an innovative element to teacher training in Art Education. Grounded in romantic, ‘kitsch’ and even ‘gore’ archetypes in literature, painting and cinema, both gravestones and cemeteries have become a central part of our collective imagination in western culture. These visual artefacts can therefore play an important role in helping us to understand the often complex relationships between images and writing. The enduring power of gravestone texts, which are commonly inscribed in marble, offers the potential to address issues that have not previously been explored in teacher training education. We hope to promote the acknowledgement of cemeteries as spaces of reflection and historical memory, both of which are key areas in the pedagogical analysis of modern visual cultures. Employing an Arts Based Education methodology, this study uses photographs taken by its author as core sources of information and analysis, in the manner of a photoessay or visual essay.

Engaging trainee teachers with crafts and cultural heritage

Authors: Sirpa Kokko and Patrick Dillon

Pages: 21–37

Abstract
This article concerns perspectives on, and formative experiences of, crafts and cultural heritage reported by twenty exchange students from seven countries who studied Cultural Heritage and Craft Education in an International Study Programme at a University in Finland. The research is reported in a cultural ecological framework. Data were collected through individual and group activities concerned with students’ understandings of key terms, memories evoked by undertaking craft activities, values held about crafts and cultural heritage, and accounts of craft education. Results show that engaging in craft practices evokes strong associations with people, places, artefacts, activities, feelings and sensations. Crafts are valued particularly for the way they connect with culture and the possibilities they offer for self-expression. Cultural heritage is associated with crafts but relationships between the two are not taught in schools. The significance of the research concerns the case made for connecting crafts and cultural heritage in a broader conceptualization of arts education.

Museum family programmes as a model to develop democratic education: A pedagogy inspired by the principles of Cha-no-yu

Author: Miyuki Otaka

Pages: 39–56

Abstract
In response to the lack of studies on art-museum family programmes despite their popularity, I have been developing pedagogy based on the four principles of the art of tea in Japan, cha-no-yu – harmony, respect, purity and tranquility – and conducting museum family programmes as an educator and researcher. Museum family programmes should provide art-appreciation and art-creation components including individual, family and group activities in a gentle, respectful and reflective atmosphere so that participants can construct their art experiences by utilizing multiple senses. The goals of family programmes are to provide meaningful and enjoyable art experiences that enable participants to learn about art, others and themselves interpersonally and personally and to enhance democratic education through dialogues within the family by emphasizing the transfer of learning from participants’ experiences in the programmes to those in their daily lives. This pedagogical model can promote education within the family and any form of democratic education.

Studying artworks and their digital copies: Valuing the artist’s aura

Authors: Debora Shaw and Jennifer Wagelie

Pages: 57–69

Abstract
Digital images extend access to works of art but little is known about of the benefits and limitations of digital copies for instruction. Students in a Museum Studies class viewed either the digital copy or original of two works of art. Regardless of format, the participants formed similar general impressions of the works, although appreciation of the objects’ size was difficult with the digital images. Students had difficulty assessing materials and media with both original works and copies. The participants had similar insights and also encountered problems, regardless of whether the work of art was two- or three-dimensional. In describing the advantages of original works, the students also noted the power of the original’s aura. Perceived strengths of the digital images included the ability to do research away from the museum (saving travel and time) and to manipulate the images.

Towards grey matter – by bridge or tunnel?

Author: Marc Goodwin

Pages: 71–87

Abstract
The emergent status of practice-based research within the arts is surprising, given the long tradition of research and reflective practice as the working methodology of artists. Stranger still is the scepticism towards its application in arts education. This article will address those problems via the impasse indicated by current literature on the topic of entrepreneurial learning. As one way out of that dead-end, a case study is presented which applies the practice-based learning of a doctoral thesis to the learning environment of an interdisciplinary course in architectural photography.

Challenging a tendency to finish before starting: A processed-based visual/ material methodology

Author: Michael Croft

Pages: 89–107

Abstract
Students tend to over-conceptualize their interests/intentions at the starting point of any given or self-set project, foreclosing the movement and process of their thinking through projects’ time frames. The article introduces the author’s self-developed visual/material thinking methodology, and proposes a means of addressing a difficulty that educator-readers working in undergraduate contexts may themselves have experienced. The context of the article, a project with Thai university students, is presented as image and text inserts. The questions raised by the methodology are therefore presented as a parallel narrative of students’ responsive material. The article is written in tandem with the unfolding of a student group’s project. As the author moves to a track of the methodology that foregrounds movement, the presentational material shifts to the work of one student who critiques the methodology’s end-point in conceptualization, but supports the alternative track: the idea of Development as a more philosophical way forward.

Becoming the middle sea: Portraits of the Mediterranean in art education

Author: Raphael Vella

Pages: 109–122

Abstract
This article examines the pedagogical, political and artistic implications of drawing an intercultural ‘portrait’ of the Mediterranean in various educational and cultural settings located in different countries in the region. Based on an educational project (‘Dessine-moi la Méditerranée’) carried out in several Mediterranean countries, in which children of different ages studied and redefined their own environments and cultures within a Mediterranean context, the article argues for an artistic pedagogy that incorporates local knowledge in the curriculum and simultaneously encourages participatory and collaborative experiences that promote relational understandings of identity. It argues against restrictive or essentialist interpretations of identity by highlighting the sense of ‘becoming’ inherent in the enigmatic, double exposure portraits and the medium of drawing employed by children during the international project.

BOOK REVIEWS

Youth, Arts and Education: Reassembling Subjectivity through Affect, Anna Hickey-Moody (2014)

Reviewer: Carl-Peter Buschkühle

Pages: 123–126

Art, Anthropology and the Gift, Roger Sansi (2015)

Reviewer: Teresa Eca

Pages: 126–128

The Routledge International Handbook of the Arts and Education, Mike Fleming, Liora Bresler and John O ’Toole (eds) (2015)

Reviewer: Folkert Haanstra

Pages: 128–129