Workshops
Workshop sessions involve extensive interaction between presenters and participants around an idea or hands-on experience of a practice. These sessions may also take the form of a crafted panel, staged conversation, dialogue or debate – all involving substantial interaction with the audience. [45 min. each]
Teaching from the Left: Visual Literacy and Social Transformation for the Twenty-first Century
Workshop Presentation Kristin Vanderlip Taylor, Lynette K Henderson
This workshop explores strategies to address real issues in contemporary society within art education classrooms, from upper elementary grades through higher education. Classroom projects incorporate “artist pages,” zines, comic panels, and mixed-media three-dimensional works of art focused on information, advocacy, or protest, with a goal of transformative learning. Curricula utilize methods and outcomes based on critical and design thinking for communication of progressive socio-cultural and political ideas in visual and written form. The presenters view a progressive perspective, also defined as “left” in traditional political polarity (Bienfait and Beeka 2014), as the most compatible with constitutional democracy in the United States. Themes, hands-on curriculum, and socially engaged fact-based research on issues such as environmental problems, healthcare, class warfare, or global warming, for example, are key to successful production of art that communicates and supports critical engagement. The tools, materials, and processes discussed and the artworks produced by students represent new understandings as well as transferable and trans-disciplinary skill sets that are imperative for the twenty-first-century global citizen. Participants in this hands-on workshop will engage in trans-disciplinary research focused on a real-world topic of their choice. They will be guided in a process of developing ideas, skill-building and then creating their own artist page, zine, comic panel, or 3D figure, to communicate their message for transformative learning - informing, advocating, or protesting contemporary socio-cultural or political issues. Mixed-media materials for 2D and 3D art production provided by presenters.
The Art of Reading Art: Communication Aspects of Contemporary Art
Workshop Presentation Anna Koenigova, Simon Kriz
How to achieve that the contemporary art will not be just for the "chosen?" The workshop demonstrates different approaches to learning through contemporary artistic creation in a gallery environment, with the help of a visual artist / teacher / curator. An example is the teachings of the art theorist and art educator from Brno, Igor Zhoř, who argued that an ideal teacher of art is an art teacher and a practitioner in one person. Within a complex understanding of the theme / art subject the emphasis is an inter-picture, linking classical and new art techniques, science and art. This interconnection helps the audience critically think not only on the ontogenetic, technological, but also show the meaning line of contemporary creation, and brings the viewer to the new level - meaningful search. The aim of the workshop is to move from the recipient to the interpreter. In this workshop, participants split into small groups will try out three approaches (practical art activities) to help develop their own perception of fine art and its future mediation. Together we will explore classical techniques inspired by Dalibor Chatrný and Milan Knižák demonstrated at the “ART IS HERE” exhibition, using new media (our own mobile phones) to explore the boundaries of identity and similarity, and finally get into the post-conceptual level of contemporary art in which they blend together both classical and new technologies based on the original artwork.
