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Exploring Care as Pedagogical and Organizational Principle in Arts Education
Exploring Care as Pedagogical and Organizational Principle in Arts Education
Fabiola Camuti & Veerle Spronck
Today, higher arts education often emphasizes engagement with diverse societal contexts. Students are encouraged to explore the intersections of art and social issues, challenging conventional boundaries, and fostering critical dialogue. This means that students must develop contextual understanding and empathy. In this session, we explore how “care” could function as a pedagogical and organizational principle in arts education that would foster the development of these competences.
Drawing on Tronto's second-generation ethics of care (2013), which extends beyond individual actions to encompass systemic considerations, and Fuchs’ organizational principles (2023), which provide a comprehensive framework for integrating care into institutional practices, we aim to explore how care can serve as a guiding principle in higher arts education. Questions we will address include: who are the stakeholders to care about in a higher arts education caring institution? Which activities do we have to put in place to care for the institution and those who make it? How does the dynamic between care giving and receiving work within the educational setting? And how can we move towards caring with strategies that empower all those involved?
In our conference session, we invite participants to engage in a hybrid format, combining presentation and co-creative workshop elements. Together, we explore the significance of infusing care principles into the fabric of arts education institutions. During this speculative lecture-workshop, participants engage in a hands-on exploration, physically mapping an art-educational case study as an “ecology of care.” This exercise prompts reflection on existing organizational practices and encourages innovative approaches to cultivating reciprocal care within higher arts education. Emphasizing reciprocity in care relations, the session aims to envision a nurturing environment where care is foundational, and relationships are mutually supportive.
Fabiola Camuti (she/her) is Professor of Creative Pedagogies at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. She has been a visiting researcher and practitioner in various countries and institutions (Italy, France, Denmark, UK, US, NL), as well as a researcher and lecturer at the Departments of Theatre Studies (University of Amsterdam) and Media and Culture (Utrecht University), and at the Professorship Art Education as Critical Tactics (ArtEZ University of the Arts). She conducts research, leads projects, and gives seminars on topics including socially-just pedagogies and pedagogies of care, participatory arts, politics of arts and cultural education, non-hierarchical learning, arts education in a more-than-human world. Additionally, she serves as program leader of Research in Education for the KUO sector (Association of Universities of Applied Sciences), where she coordinates a national working group aimed at strengthening the knowledge ecosystem and research culture within art universities.
Veerle Spronck (she/her) works as Associate Professor of Valuable Entrepreneurship in and through the Arts at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. Building on her interdisciplinary background in aesthetics, (feminist) science & technology studies, artistic research, and ethnography, she conducts empirical research on the role of the arts in complex societal issues. She, for instance, investigated the practices and methods of third cycle artistic research, and wrote her PhD (Maastricht University) on the innovation of audience participation in classical music practice. In current research projects, she analyzes which role(s) artists, designers and musicians play in transdisciplinary collaborations. What skills are needed for those new roles? And what implications does this have for how artistic and art educational practices are organized? Next to her research, Veerle teaches artistic research one day a week at the HKU School Creative Transformation, and she is the leader of the national art lectorates platform Art ≈ Research.
Location
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
Contact info Louis van den Hengel
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