Abstract

Art and Community has had a both resonant and troubled history, which returns to us in various guises, to inform educational practice, whether it be ‘community art’; ‘relational aesthetics’; art as social practice; ‘socially engaged art’ or the ‘provenance’ of recent Turner prize winners and how they bear any relation at all to ‘art education’ as ‘we’ know it. This presentation will explore, with some reference to past histories* and a little bit of philosophical ‘mind-bending’** how art education and art practice may, importantly, usefully and for many reasons, including social justice, actually ‘trouble’ conventions of ‘community’ and set them on another footing. • *E.g. Matarasso, F (2019) A restless art-how participation won, and why it matters Central Books. • **The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy has throughout his work sought to ‘unravel’ ‘community’ for the sake of a different sense of ‘being-in-common’. This latter sense importantly, through art and literature remains an ‘open question’, subject to constant revision, as opposed to that which is subject to the ‘laws’ of ‘making a common property’ of community.

Bio

Jenny Walden has worked in Art and Design Education in HE for many years, whilst latterly being an Associate Dean in a Faculty of Technology as an exercise in transferable skills! She is an active member of NAFAE with a strong wish to help sustain the benefits of subject associations.