Conference Review
Some thoughts about my conference experience:
Art connects us with the world in a specific way. Through art processes, we get in touch with others, the world and ourselves. Therefore making art can be understood as a kind of worldmaking, as Nelson Goodman turned out.
On Sept. 16th and 17th, a remarkable conference about “International Perspectives of Research in Arts Education” took place in Düsseldorf. Prof. Christian Rittelmeyer, member of the advisory board, invited me, to present my dissertation research there.
Everyone contributed own ideas about the different ways, how the questions “what can art teach us?” and “what educates us in life?” can be answered.
Liora Bresler from University of Illinois gave
an impressive keynote. She was talking about dissonance, resonance and the interplay of distances. Further she made clear, that art education goes far beyond learning techniques and getting a kind of visual literacy. It aims to give us a habit of mind and a way of being.
Researches from all over the world presented their projects in different working groups. There we discussed main topics like:
- Art based research
- Methodological approaches
- Media education
- Visual literacy
- Music education
- Quality and participation
- Cooperation in arts education, …
The internationality of the researchers gave us a variety of perspectives. That was interesting and fruitful. Hearing something about art/research projects for example from South Africa and India did not only give me an insight of how different art education can be.
It also gave me an impression, of how different our idea of science and scientistic thinking can be. I think, the discourse about “what is science and how can it be pushed foreword” needs internationality and collaboration between the different disciplines like music, fine arts, drama and dance…
It provokes to question ones own point of view by being confronted with a new and different standpoint.
The scientists spoke about art with that much passion that the special energy, that art can set free, was not only discussed, but for some moments you could virtually feel it.
So thanks a lot to the DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.) and BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) for supporting this enriching conference. It is my personal opinion, that in a world that is growing together, we need people who are able and willing to teach others the various ways of worldmaking through art.
In a world of many restrictions art could be the language which can overcome our inner and outer borders. It may help us to become more tolerant by seeing the world through different eyes communicated by individual art expressions.
Should be continued
