Approaches to Critical Diversity Literacy through art education (2019)
The colloquium “Approaches to Critical Diversity Literacy through Art Education” was organized for the second time in October 2019 at the Brugg-Windisch campus as part of the interdisciplinary seminar program “Art Education and Theatre Pedagogy”.
We asked:
- How can norms and taken-for-granted behavior in the school environment be critically questioned?
- How do we confront everyday differences and the underlying categories of differentiation?
Fifty students enrolled in the three-semester module cycle “art education and theatre pedagogy” considered these questions in context of a colloquium which included artistically orientated workshops and presentations. After a keynote speech by Nina Mühlemann students could get involved in four workshops. The colloquium concluded with a reflection circle and a summarizing commentary from a “critical friend”.
Keynote speech
Nina Mühlemann’s introductory keynote speech “Breaking out of assigned spaces: Access as Aesthetics in the Disability Arts” focused on the following question: what could happen when performing arts do not start from the normative idea of a non-disabled audience and instead would position the question of access as a creative start to the artistic process.
Based on selected performances, Nina Mühlemann outlined how art is used by people with disabilities to break out of the narrow (knowledge) spaces that are constructed around them and assigned to them. Nina Mühlemann showed images from various theatre works orientated towards non-normative bodies, presenting performances that incorporate audio description, sign language and other forms of assistance to thus include an audience rarely ever directly addressed.
Mühlemann talked about “access aesthetics” that destabilize the boundary between “non-disabled” and “disabled” and open up new horizons for performances. Nina Mühlemann invited the audience to engage in a joint reflection by describing selected performance images. The exercise showed in how many different ways we see these images and how different our interpretations and perceptive abilities are. Introducing a spectrum of embodied approaches and possibilities, Mühlemann opened up perspectives of new ways of experiencing life together, making the audience aware of the extent to which we are all dependent on assistance if we want to experience the world in all its diversity and learn to “read” it.
Four workshops
Following the keynote speech, the students took part in four workshops, in which various approaches to diversity-oriented education were discussed. The following short subjective descriptions provide insights into the workshops without ambitioning to capture them in their entirety.
Company for intermediate areas
Olivia Suter and Ute Sengebusch
The two artists staged a silent perception walk in the area around the Brugg-Windisch campus, inviting participants to consciously perceive the place and build a relationship with it that is not based on preconceived images and categories, but on sensual, non-rational knowledge. No mobile phones were taken on a walk which was entirely dedicated to collecting (sonic) impressions. This initial material served as basis for the creation of new stories and narrative formats (such as walk-in sound installations and performances). The two artists had previously pursued this process with young people from a wide range of social and geographical backgrounds. In a nutshell, the workshop showed how liberating and generative this process can become for the creation of new material.
Kadiatou Diallo
Using her own art projects as departing point, Kadiatou Diallo questioned what is considered natural or normal here and now in a post-colonial Switzerland. She then tasked students to elaborate which categories of differentiation seemed relevant to their lives and their everyday school and university life and how they positioned themselves within them. Through this process, it became apparent that “normal” is merely that which has become established as the standard in a certain context. For example, the idea that Switzerland is white and neutral and has no colonial past – a silenced history that is still partly manifested in colonial racist ideas in Swiss school and children’s books. With a broader understanding of the diversity of any given environment, the participants came to recognize the need to attentively listen and observe in order to open space to what has been silenced.
Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez
Wishing to enable participation and access for as many people as possible we are confronted with complex and sometimes seemingly unsolvable questions. For example, when a room needs to be accessible for children and their parents as well as for people with concentration deficit challenges, or when it needs to accommodate both the assistance dog of a visually impaired person and a person suffering of dog allergy. Knowing that imperfection is part of life, people with disabilities have learnt to deal with such competing access needs in an circumspect and improvised way. Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez encourage us to face up to these access paradoxes and to understand that the associated negotiation processes – especially in schools – offer creative learning experiences, preventing us from freezing up in the complexity of the issues and/or from doing nothing at all. Unorthodox solutions are most likely to be found when the expertise of those affected is recognized and consulted (for a fee).
Nadja Baldini
Called “Useful Art”, Naja Baldini presented various art projects that are currently intervening in cultural, political and social contexts. Driven by the question which spaces and arrangements can favour diversity, the aim of these art projects was to foster a critical understanding of diversity and make it visible in the space. Thanks to a broad brainstorming regarding the concept of diversity, an interactive sound sculpture was designed. Using the example of La Fafa association in Zurich, whose aim is to create an exchange between artists, refugees and a wider circle of interested people by means of performances in cultural and educational institutions, the workshop encouraged the participants to explore diversity driven art projects to be introduced in contexts of learning institutions.
Conclusion
The colloquium encouraged the participants to develop a joyful approach to questions that arise when we want to enable access and participation for as many people as possible. The challenges and access paradoxes can trigger great creative potential and open imaginations for possibilities of reorganization and redesign spaces. In order to be able to realize this transformative and aesthetic potential, we as teachers must also recognize “obstacles” and specifically address structural disadvantages and privileges. The fear of making mistakes is “normal” and should not prevent us from taking action. Conversely, people who are confronted with obstacles and subtle marginalization on a daily basis also have a “right” to be angry. In order to be able to react productively as teachers and respond to criticism, it is not only important to reflect on our own assumptions, but also to develop a culture of error – aware that life is never perfect, but that every small step counts on the way to more diversity and social justice.