Federica Bueti
No Place to Sit is an attempt to examine the present scenario in contemporary art, where some parameters are subverted and reconfigured in new forms and practices. Nomadism is a fundamental dimension of our era and from this prospective we are able to define a cultural scene where significative changes are happening.
Starting from a consideration of the nomadic condition of today’s life, the text considers time-based practices and the relation that connects these practices to a critical definition of new forms and content. Contemporary practices are engaging in the use of time in an attempt to activate reflections, not only through forms but also in the way that they are producing discourses. These contemporary modes of production are based on nomadic practices, not simply in terms of freely moving around or upon merely physical space, but upon time-based practices, which are allowing artists to engage in different time based dimensions, floating in a universe of expanded forms and meanings, where past, present and future are unique fragments of the real.
Artists are working within acritical discourse by transgressing media and engaging in political issues using means like writing or intersecting boundaries between different media, using different disciplines as instruments to broaden the trajectories of their discourse.
No Place to Sit is the product of an intense period of discussion and exchange of ideas in the framework of the first Curatorial Course organized by the Gwangju Biennale foundation, Gwangju.
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Aaron Davis
The misappropriation of Minimalist Art as a purely formal and aesthetic means of non-expression has resulted in no less than an adulteration of the politics implicit in the work. The revisionist historicism of the movement’s practitioners, too, levels critiques at their personalities more than their actual work. Rather than provide a narrative by way of figuration or referential abstraction, the production of meaning through the experience of minimal art is the task of the viewer, not the artist. This text seeks to reassess the political agencies created by Minimalism, through a close reading of Donald Judd’s “Specific Objects” as a means to understand autonomy as an end-goal for art, and conjecture at its potential for architecture.
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Mary Drinkwater
The education system is in the midst of intense and rapid change. Everyone wants the best possible education for their children, but cannot agree on the most appropriate mix of programs, curriculum, tests and approaches to achieve this goal. While schools struggle with how best to educate students for the future, they are also dealing with serious financial pressures. In schools all across Ontario, teachers, parents and administrators are making decisions about the skills students will need and about the best way to use scarce resources to meet competing demands. They are looking at how and what to teach, and they are deciding which programs to eliminate, and which to keep. Where does arts education fit in this restructuring of education? Will schools continue to offer arts education or are these programs vulnerable?
The purpose of this paper will be to undertake an in-depth study on whether and how to promote an increased focus on arts education in Ontario public schools. It will be argued that the use of critical democratic pedagogy with the arts, integrated across the curriculum, is a valuable educational policy tool to help re-create our schools as models of democracy and social justice. The paper will begin by examining the need for educational policy change. Secondly, it will describe the theory and principles behind critical democratic pedagogy (CDP). Thirdly, it will argue that the use of CDP through the arts can both deepen learning and increase student engagement. Further, it will be argued that in order for the full potential of the arts to be realized, a paradigm shift will be required from a conception of the arts in secondary schools existing solely as ‘stand-alone’ courses, to arts as aesthetic learning embedded across the curriculum. Finally, it will present an approach for radical policy development, which recognizes the value of a policy web metaphor in bringing together a broad and diverse group of policy actors, to follow critical democratic principles in the pursuit of educational policy change.
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