Fishing with John
One of three key note speakers at the Sensuous Knowledge conference.
For my keynote contribution I will propose and illustrate a series of questions, assumptions and challenges for art education in order to stimulate discourse and future agenda-setting around the notion of cross-disciplinary, thematic lines of enquiry.
In my role as an artist, educator and curator I want to explore some of the debates surrounding the future direction, agendas and what constitutes a legitimate curriculum and research context, for the modern art school and a question the role and relevance of artists who evidence a commitment to engaging with thematic enquiry involving other disciplines and agencies. I intend to critically question the relationship between subject disciplines and a wider set of parameters of social and cultural conditions that affect, and are in turn affected by cultural practice.
I want to use the opportunity to present a case for higher arts education to consider a thematic-orientated structure as a relevant axis for creative education, and question the subject-specific practices that currently characterise the majority of our institutional approaches to curriculum construction. It is arguable that informed and critical cultural practices draw their momentum more from a response to current pertinent social and cultural debates than from the core subject traditions. This is not to propose that there is a lesser value in exploring tradition, history or the lineages of artistic practice, but that these are enhanced by an informed contemporary research culture. Neither will I argue that artistic practice should abandon its unique position of promoting the raising of questions more than providing answers that also require the artist still to legitimately engage in practice that is often speculative, provocative and reflexive rather than being overly didactic or illustrative.
I think it is time to revise the map of relationships both within the art institution and outside it, and place a greater emphasis on learning and cultural practice as a reflexive process that is both inclusive and proactive in addressing the notions of context, quality, the relationship between theory and practice. Equally important is how we respond to the potentially instrumentalising and bureaucratic post Bologna rhetoric of ‘knowledge generation’ and research with reference to the subject specific characteristics of the arts.
The recent debates surrounding the importance of research, the function of discourse, the importance of experimentation and the recognition of process as a form of practice and the role and purpose of the artifact, are well articulated and continually critically interrogated within the academic institution. There is a danger, however, of these debates becoming hermetic, and that opening up a dialogue, and engaging with context and partnerships are important in freeing up and expanding these debates outside the formal institutional education sectors.
This, of course, raises further questions about how the art school is both populated and supported. How we develop pedagogic models that embrace Reflection, Relevance and Responsibility: that contribute to and influence society and give voice both individually and collectively on important and increasingly pressing social and political issues affecting our lives How we achieve this, whilst retaining our independence and promoting experimentation, critical dialogue and originality, is arguably one of the most important challenges for the future.
The title of the presentation ‘Fishing With John’ refers to the 1991 cult American TV series hosted by actor and musician John Lurie who invited a range of musicians, artists, and other creative individuals on fishing trips. Neither he, nor his guests were expert fishermen and his expeditions became dialogues and encounters that ranged from dramatic to supernatural, giving thought to new possibilities of looking at the world.
Prof Chris Wainwright
Artist, Head of Colleges, Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon (CCW) President of ELIA.
University of the Arts London
