What if we think of the classroom as a work of art? Performance, collaboration, and social engagement considered as pedagogic practices

Abstract

This article brings into relation critical perspectives and practical tactics from a range of different fields—performance studies, visual art practice, pedagogy and educational theory, and activism and community organising—in order to create some space for re-imagining what might be possible within the dynamics of the Higher Education classroom. It proceeds through a series of speculative modes: ‘what if we think of the classroom as a market?’, which for many is the currently dominant metaphor under neoliberalist economies; ‘what if we think of the work of art as a classroom?’, which traces the recent ‘pedagogical’ or ‘educational’ turn in visual art practice; and finally, ‘what if we think of the classroom as a work of art?’, in which the creative impulses and tactics drawn from performance practices, activism and community organising, and socially engaged art are speculatively applied to the arts and humanities classroom.