Risky choices: the dilemmas of introducing contemporary art practices into schools

Abstract

Contemporary art is a popular feature of the cultural landscape in the United Kingdom, and recent research has recommended introducing its practices into state education. Yet these practices are still rare in schools, and this paper argues that the many difficulties that arise from attempts to introduce them are indicative of their socially contingent character, which threatens to disrupt the ideological underpinnings of orthodox school practices. The school art projects ‘Room 13’ and ‘Teaching through contemporary art’ are used as prominent examples of contemporary art practices that support a relatively high degree of learner autonomy within state education, yet are situated outside of government initiatives. Through these projects the paper explores the dilemmas that the participants face, which include questions of learner agency, choice and creative risk, and the effects of regulatory assessment systems upon collaboration, experiment, play and ephemeral learning outcomes. The paper concludes by examining the possibilities of encouraging these more ‘risky’ contemporary practices in schools.

Keywords:

• contemporary art
• learner agency
• ideologies of choice
• collaboration
• play and experiment
• regulatory assessment

Notes

1. The research project was originally called ‘Teaching, Learning and Communicating through Contemporary Art Practices’ and was funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. It began as collaborative research between Goldsmiths College, University of London (the author was manager of the research project) and Tate Modern in 2006.