Culturally Responsible Approach to Teaching East Asian Art in the Classroom

Abstract

Drawing from the rich philosophical traditions of East Asia, we redress the questions and inquiry methods of teaching about East Asian artists and their works in the classroom, rejecting European White master frameworks when appreciating the arts of East Asia. To illustrate our approach, we have chosen two contemporary Asian artists, Do-ho Suh and Wou-Ki Zao, and we discuss why and how European White pedagogy has limitations in appreciating these works. As an alternative, we focus on a holistic lens of viewing East Asian artistic expressions, which is one of the key methods to understand artworks by many East Asian artists (Sullivan & Vainker, 2018; Stanley-Baker, 2014). To make East Asian art curriculum culturally responsive and authentic, we suggest that art educators adopt the holistic approach of teaching the East Asian art, in which art is seamlessly weaved with worldview, culture, and philosophy as one.