Site, Situatedness and Chaos: Mapping Spatiopolitical Forces in Pre-Service Teacher Education and Youth Art Programs

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Lisa Novak,  Christina Hanawalt  

This paper confronts the spatiopolitical complexities faced by two art educators while facilitating experiential art programs for local youth at a contemporary art gallery at the edge of campus/downtown. Drawing on theories of space, the authors map the complex context of their mutual work with youth programs and discuss how location/situatedness impacted pre-service teacher education at this university-affiliated gallery space. Starting with the entrance to the building, which is located on the main street of downtown and represents a physical and visual boundary between campus and community, the first presenter examines the spatiopolitical forces at play in the implementation of an after-school art program for middle school students taught by preservice art teachers. Moving to the back of the building, the second presenter analyzes the spatiopolitical forces at work in the development of a youth-led community art garden in the gallery parking lot which abutted a fence bordering a low-income housing community. In each case, the complexities of spatial politics were fraught with material and immaterial forces that produced chaos and unpredictability, but which we argue were productive pedagogical elements that highlighted opportunities for political intervention. We suggest that by becoming responsive to the spatiopolitical aspects of teaching, we can respond to and/or make visible the complexities of working in the liminal spaces of public/private life and communal/institutional spaces. As educators affiliated with large universities, our study invites attendees to explore how spatial politics destabilize and weave through their own pedagogy, teacher preparation courses, and/or work with young people.