students’ biennale 2018 | conference

Pedagogical In-Flux & The Art of Education | International Art Education Conference
21-22 March 2019, Biennale Pavilion, Cabral Yard, Kochi

Kochi Biennale Foundation, in collaboration with Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, conducted an international conference titled Pedagogical In-Flux & the Art of Education.

The conference explored the systemic shifts within the larger frameworks of (art) education in a global context that is redefining the roles and significance of art schools as one of the primary spaces of learning and knowledge production. The conference with Indian and international speakers extended key questions and processes emerged from SB’s Expanded Education Programme, focusing on learner-centric and artist/educator-led pedagogy, technologies of teaching, new materialism and processes of making, and the significance of locations/site in artistic practices.

Even as we think of newer pedagogic models to replace the traditional art school studio/classroom, it becomes inevitable to re-excavate and expand the potential of the art school as ‘laboratories for thinking’ by diversification and intensification of learning environments. A learner-centric approach, which cultivates and nurtures the possibilities of the coexistence of multiple frameworks for conception, production and ‘transmission’ of artistic knowledge, may provide a way beyond the dichotomous structure of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. While the school itself will be the first point of entry in our re-thinking of pedagogies of art education, through the Students' Biennale Expanded Education Programme workshops, there has also emerged some recurring fields/realms of investigation, each feeding into our understanding of how art practice can be taught with a renewed energy and rigour.

The two-day session sought to provide an overview of the SB Education Platforms' engagement with art college students across India, address questions about the state of education today that institutions need to ask, and allow for the formation of new frameworks in teaching that are emerging through developments in art practice.

To view the conference schedule, click here.