ACUADS 2006 Conference

 
In 2003 South Australian School of Art (SASA) Art Industry Internship Program was introduced as a pilot study providing seven students with the opportunity to undertake a placement with a host organisation. The program had a double focus with the students gaining firsthand experience of the function and operation of a contemporary art venue, gallery or enterprise, while also undertaking a specific project that was academically assessed and of value to the host organisation. The program continued in 2004 with a doubling of student numbers and a corresponding expansion of host organisations.

This paper outlines the development and implementation of the SASA Internship Program. It considers the range and diversity of internships, the differences between formal and informal placements and raise questions concerning evaluation methods and the pedagogical implications for tertiary art education.

While acknowledging the obvious benefits to students in providing them with professional and vocational experience, this paper acknowledges the tensions that can arise between academic requirements and the expectations of host organisations, and between education and the market. In addressing these issues, this paper is framed by Zygmunt Bauman's theory of ambivalence in order to articulate (and perhaps resolve) my own sense of uneasiness and discomfort when faced with the encroachment of market concerns onto the territory of the art curriculum.

Finally, my paper considers whether the Internship Programs can enhance graduate employment outcomes and provide a basis for further development of art school, industry and community linkages and collaborations.

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In the last few years, many universities in Australia and overseas have been undertaking exercises in curriculum mapping, where staff review the learning outcomes, content, learning activities, and assessment of a given subject, to identify where and how graduate attributes are taught, practised, and assessed within the subject. The goals are usually to assist in aligning subject design with assessment or learning activities, and ultimately with the graduate attributes that are set for the whole degree. When curriculum mapping is done over a whole degree the goal is often to reveal gaps and areas of over-concentration.

The College of Fine Arts has recently undertaken a preliminary mapping process across all its undergraduate degrees. This process has required the approaches used to develop graduate attributes and curriculum maps to be applied to the areas of fine arts and design in particular. This paper will explore the value of curriculum mapping in these disciplines. How does the process function when the subject is addressing notions of creativity, self-development, and a – somewhat open-ended – studio practice? What is its value in the fine arts and design; and what does it contribute to the overall education in the visual arts?

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Traditionally, undergraduates in visual and performing art courses have been grounded with a significant allocation of technical skills though formal teaching in studios, with a lesser emphasis on art history/theory and professional business studies.

Following a significant course review in 2004, James Cook University has renegotiated its five named degrees from the College of Music, Visual Arts and Theatre and condensed them into a Bachelor of New Media Arts. At the core of our new curriculum was the necessity to develop more practical theory in our undergraduate programs. The staff, in collaboration with Professor Des Crawley, agreed that it was impractical to create 'great practitioners' in a diverse range of disciplines in the current economic climate. With this in mind a new matrix was conceived to enable students to negotiate their degree with a range of core, majors and electives that integrated our college into other sections of the University.

Central to our new program is a suite of core units that position our students into contemporary art in a global sense; integrating aesthetics, technology, philosophy, community, culture and the economy. The anticipated outcome of our new programs will be graduates who comprehend their audience and give meaning to their work, enabling public discourse as well as rigorous cultural analysis. Their art production will embrace a new range of media and be accompanied with sound theory that will position their work in the broader community.

In this paper I wish to outline the motivation behind our new course structure, its pedagogical premise, the matrix, the rationale behind the Core units and the interdisciplinary Creative Exchange that is central to the degree structure.

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The relationship between Universities and their host community has often been problematic, but over the past decade, since the Howard Government established a more rigorous climate of accountability, universities have been required to embrace community engagement along with teaching & learning and research & development as part of their contract.

Building links with the cities they share and contributing to the cultural life of that community, while offering a critical examination of its intertwining histories, is becoming an increasingly important role adopted for many university galleries.

University art galleries serve many communities: their host university, most importantly: the arts community in general; the expanded national and international communities, and the local community in which they reside. While their fundamental service agreement is with the university, their role in documenting and interpreting those local histories, attitudes and responses, and their additional role as a catalyst and collaborator in generating new work, must be accommodated within that primary contract.

The expectations of these other communities are increasing and university galleries are aiming to meet those agendas while ensuring that the core responsibilities of a professional gallery located within an educational institution are not compromised.

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This paper presents a research seminar as a case study to explore the role of artists/educators and agencies in contemporary learning. Drawing on the international report 'Moving Forward on Arts and Education' (2006), a number of potential areas for action emerge:

  • that we should regard teaching and learning in the arts as open-ended, iterative and evolving,
    and not necessarily content-driven;
  • that educators should enhance the learning and development of both artists and educators;
  • that education should increase the collaborations with other key partners.

The paper focuses on the role played by a high profile exhibition of secondary student art in relation to contemporary art practice and art, design and education. The paper discusses how the seminar aimed to generate dialogues around the significance of a key contemporary student exhibition that resides within a web of agencies and institutions.

The paper discusses the critical, but largely undiscussed, aspects of a key student exhibition as a public reflection of contemporary art practice, encompassing some of the following themes:

  • exhibitions and contemporary art/design practice;
  • dialogues between secondary and tertiary institutions and agencies;
  • the significance of exhibitions for the public broadly defined.
 

• 'Moving Forward on Arts and Education' (2006) A Report to the UNESCO World Conference on Arts and Education (Lisbon: March 2006). From the Arts and Education Mini-Summit in Melbourne, Australia, 11-12 September 2005.

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The educational program 'Philosophy for Children' (Matthew Lipman), has been developed through the International Association for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (Montclair State University, New Jersey). It advocates transforming classrooms into 'communities of inquiry', to yield significant and beneficial outcomes for future societies. This vision is outwardly political, consciously optimistic, and potentially extremely powerful:
      To convert classrooms into communities of inquiry moves us beyond arguments and
      theories into the realm of concrete actions aimed at changing the world for the better.
      (Sharp & Reed, 1992:171-172)
Yet, philosophical inquiry is understood in this program as a strictly linguistic activity - stimulated by reading and explored through conversation.

This paper asserts that the framework for fostering life-long reflective thought set-up in 'Philosophy for Children' is not only satisfied by the practice of art making, but also enhanced in crucial ways through physical engagement in creating (for both amateur and professional art maker). The question remains: can visual art practice be said to be a form of philosophical inquiry?
 

• Sharp, A. M. & Reed, R. F. 1992 (eds) Studies in Philosophy for Children: Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery
  (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).

 
Jude Adams is a lecturer in the Visual Art & Design History/Theory Department of the South Australian School of Art (SASA), University of South Australia. Jude teaches core and elective courses in: Australian art; Sex, Gender and Representation; The Moving Image: Cinema and Art, and coordinates Professional Practice. In 2005 Jude was inaugural director of the SASA Gallery. In 2003 Jude initiated and developed the successful Arts Industry Internship Program, a project-based work experience course for Honours students. Special interests include modernist women artists, gender in contemporary visual practices and gender and the art school curriculum.

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Graham Forsyth is Senior Lecturer in Art History & Theory, and Associate Dean (Academic) at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. Graham has led a major survey of the Student Experience at COFA (completed in 2006), as well as a project to Map Graduate Attributes undertaken in 2005.

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Gay McDonald is Postgraduate Research Coordinator and a Senior Lecturer at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. Her research interests include: modern art and design; exhibition history; the educational application of art history and theory; and the philosophy, history and theory of art museums.

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Stephen Naylor has worked as an educator and practitioner for more than 25 years in secondary education, TAFE and the university sector, and has exhibited widely in the southern states. Over the last decade, he has concentrated extensively on the spatial mapping of contemporary art for Art Monthly and other national journals. He is a regular contributor to reviews on Australian representation in International visual arts events and has a particular interest in spatial theory. He is currently awaiting the examination of his PhD on Australia's representation in the Venice Biennale 1954-2003, and lectures in Art Theory & Visual Arts at James Cook University, Townsville.

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Ted Snell is Professor of Contemporary Art and Dean of Art, John Curtin Centre, Curtin University of Technology, Perth Western Australia, where he has responsibility for the John Curtin Gallery. He was chair of the Australian Council of University Art & Design Schools (ACUADS) from 1999-2002, chair of Artbank, the federal government's art leasing agency, from 2000–2006, and a board member of the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) until 2005. In 2003, he chaired the Premier's Fashion Industry Taskforce in Western Australia and in 2004 he was chair of the Western Australian Government's 'Living Treasures' Committee. He is currently chair of Museums Australia, Art Craft Design Special Interest Group (ACDSIG), and a board member of the Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (BEAP).

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Kim Snepvangers is currently Head, School of Art Education, and a Senior Lecturer at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. Her current research uses qualitative methodologies to investigate assessment in art and design education and community engagement in a range of contemporary (physical and virtual) sites.

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Bec Tudor is undertaking a PhD at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania. The working title of her thesis is: 'Visual Art, Environment and the Development of Values'. She has a Bachelor of Art (UNSW) and a Master of Art, Design & Environment (UTAS).

In 2006, Tudor exhibited in the Hobart Mountain Festival Sculpture Trail, presented at the Senses of Place conference and co-authored study guides for Sydney's Chalk the Walk festival. Tudor is also secretary of INFLIGHT art, Tasmania's only artist-run initiative, and presents occasional lectures in art theory and wilderness studies at the Tasmanian School of Art.