Service-Learning as Postmodern Art and Pedagogy

Abstract

Service-learning is like community service in that it engages students in working with the community and contributes to the development of their civic responsibility. Though learning undoubtedly occurs during community service, in service-learning there is an intentional effort to utilize the experience as a learning resource (Howard, 1993). In some cases service-learning is approached as a social action that stresses the need for collaborative self-transformation of all parties in creating a more just society (Pearson 1999, p. 98). When linked to Harold Pearse's (1992) postmodern reconstructionist view that art is a social process in the service of social justice, this idea suggests that service-learning can be considered a work of art in some cases. According to postmodern and critic Estella Conwill Majozo, Our relevance as human beings can be seen in the meaning of our acts as (1995, p. 88). Through this article, I am challenging art educators and future art educators to understand that our work as artists continues far outside our studios and even our classrooms. As postmodern and critic Suzi Gablik puts it, we need an art [and an art education] that transcends the distanced formality of aesthetics and dares to respond to the cries of the (1991, p. 100). Postmodernism, Artists and Works of Art Today, anyone seriously concerned with art cannot ignore the question of how art functions socially and politically (Risatti, 1998, p. 66). The emphasis placed on the social and political function of postmodern art extends the definition of both art and artists. For example, works of art in a postmodern world do not necessarily always come from those artists considered masters, nor are works of art always housed in museums or galleries. A postmodern view of art does not focus on the place works of art are exhibited, the ways they are created, or the materials with which they are made. It focuses more on the way the art affects, provokes, and challenges both and viewer. Therefore, postmodern art may be considered a transformative vehicle of sorts in that the process of and in its creation and interpretation may serve to transform both the and viewer. Postmodernism challenges many artists to change both how and why they make art. As many university art instructors are discovering, this challenge is met with both anger and fear. Postmodern art often employs such paradox and conflict (Efland, Freedman & Stuhr, 1996; Garoian, 1999). Majozo (1995) warns that the fear many have for this postmodern approach to both making and looking at art is the fear that elitism will be destroyed and that the function of art will once again be recognized. Art in today's postmodern world can no longer be simply described as selfexpression. Gablik (1991) believes that this art embodies aliveness and collaboration, a dimension excluded from the solitary, essentially logocentric discourses of modernity (p. 106). The postmodern practice of collaboration extends beyond the artists themselves and to the viewers who become directly active in the art through participation. Art critic Jeff Kelley (1995) says, participation is not simply a matter of agreeing with the at the outset of a project or of her agreeing with her participants. Rather, is a dialogical process that changes both the participants and the artist (pp. 232-233). Collaborative has become the key to postmodern Dominique Mazeud's performance work entitled The Great Cleansing of the Rio Grande. Since September 1987, Mazeud walks the riverbed of the Sante Fe River on the 17th day of each month. She brings large garbage bags and with the help of friends and local community volunteers, works to collect and remove the trash that litters the river's beaches and shallow areas. Originally, Mazeud's performance art was designed as a political catalyst for environmental awareness. …