Adult education for social and environmental change in contemporary public art galleries and museums in Canada, Scotland and England

Abstract

Historically, pubic art galleries and museums have a well-deserved reputation for elitism, colonialism and exclusion and they are, therefore, frequently omitted from the discourse of adult education. However, the escalating social, cultural and ecological problems of this new century have placed pressure on these public institutions to change and respond. Using selective examples, this article attempts to illustrate public arts and cultural institutions as contested, problematic, challenging, yet equally progressive, critical and creative pedagogical spaces that play an important role in the struggle for social and environmental change. Through exhibitions, artworks, objects, workshops and seminars, these institutions trouble identity, decolonize, mock, revisualize, tell alternative stories, reorient authoritative practice, interrogate intolerance and privilege and stimulate critical literacies. We must continue to expose and critique traditions that perpetuate inequalities and maintain the status quo but in a world starved of hope, these sites provide new pedagogical possibilities.

Keywords:

• public art galleries
• museums
• tradition
• social and ecological change
• public pedagogy

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Darlene E. Clover

Darlene E. Clover is a professor of Adult Education in Leadership Studies at the University of Victoria. Correspondence: University of Victoria, Canada.