20th anniversary programmes on pedagogy

As part of our 20th anniversary, Asia Art Archive (AAA) is presenting an exhibition, a series of talks and workshops, and online resources highlighting our ongoing research initiative on art pedagogy. Visit our exhibition reflecting on the changes in art education in China from the 1950s onward, join us for online talks on artists’ personal stories about teaching, and view our educators’ resources designed by Hong Kong–based and international artists. These programmes will continue into 2021, in collaboration with several collectives, including Gudskul from Jakarta, as well as C&G Artpartment, Kai Fong Pai Dong, Rooftop Institute, and Tomato Grey from Hong Kong.  

These programmes are part of our decade-long research on art pedagogy, which paved the way for the digitisation of the personal archives of influential artist-educators in Asia. Salima Hashmi taught and led various educational institutions in Lahore over three decades. Zheng Shengtian taught at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou for more than thirty years. Roberto Chabet nurtured the artistic development of several generations of artists in the Philippines from the 1960s onward. Jyoti Bhatt, Ratan Parimoo, Gulammohammed Sheikh, and K.G. Subramanyan shaped the Fine Arts Department at MSU Baroda in post-independence India. Furthermore, in response to the lack of educational resources about contemporary art in Asia, AAA’s Learning & Participation has been offering programmes and online resources for teachers’ professional development since 2009.  

With our 20th anniversary, we pay tribute to the artist-teachers and schools that have shaped contemporary practices in the region.  

Exhibition | Learning What Can’t Be Taught 
Opens in November 2020
 
Hosted at AAA Library, this exhibition focuses on six artists from three generations who were each other’s teachers and students at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou. It explores what was taught in classrooms across the generations and proposes lines of continuity among these artists: what guidance did they receive from their teachers, and how did this, in turn, influence the way they taught art? On display are rarely seen artworks, archival materials, and video interviews with Zheng Shengtian, Jin Yide, Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, Lu Yang, and Jiang Zhuyun.  

Talks and workshops | Life Lessons 
Ongoing
 
Life Lessons is a year-long series that enquires into models for education led by artists. We ask: What was the most influential lesson they learned in school? And how have they, in turn, passed on what they learned about forms of knowledge and care to their students or communities of learners? Scheduled for spring 2020 to spring 2021, Life Lessons features online and offline conversations and workshops with artists, art collectives, and creative practitioners who teach at universities, build educational programmes at arts organisations, and run their own schools. Each session addresses their personal stories and unique teaching methods. 

Online resource | Artist Exercises for Learning at Home 
Ongoing
 
Artist Exercises: Learning at Home is a series of educators’ resources that investigates the role of art in education during the school suspension in the ongoing health crisis. Developed by Hong Kong–based and international artists, these creative exercises are designed for teachers and students to reflect upon their experience of the coronavirus outbreak, including relevant social issues and the place of art in times of emergency. The invited artists explore topics such as physical distancing, interpersonal communication, public space, food supply, hygiene, time, and empathy.

IDEAS Journal 
Ongoing 

Read a conversation between Regina Bittner, Kathrin Rhomberg, and R. Siva Kumar about the founding of Shantiniketan’s art school; Michael Leung’s reflections on the potential for emancipatory learning; Karen Cheung’s essay about AAA’s collection of zines on the ongoing political movement in Hong Kong; and Trisha Low’s lyric ruminations on the unresolvable desire for shared utopia amidst crisis and collapse, all available on AAA’s online journal IDEAS.  

Special thanks 
Learning What Can’t Be Taught: Wendy Lee & Stephen Li; Virginia & Wellington Yee
Life Lessons and Artist Exercises for Learning at Home: S. H. Ho Foundation Limited and CK and Kay Ho Foundation 

Asia Art Archive is an independent non-profit organisation initiated in 2000 in response to the urgent need to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region. With one of the most valuable collections of material on art freely available from its website and onsite library, AAA builds tools and communities to collectively expand knowledge through research, residency, and educational programmes. As AAA celebrates its twentieth anniversary, we are grateful for everyone’s continued support in making a more generous art history possible.