Abstract
Literature on art education often emphasizes dialogue as a preferred approach and as a way of practicing democratic education in museums and galleries. Dialogue-based tours in such contexts are often characterized by a sense of harmony and agreement. In contrast, this article discusses the democratic aspect and political potentiality when dissensus and agonism are used as central educational strategies. The point of departure for the discussion was a teaching session on the online platform Zoom with student teachers as part of their module on art and crafts at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway, in spring 2020. Artworks from the exhibition Dry Joy, in Sørlandet Art Museum, by Finnish photographer Iiu Susiraja, were the pivot point in the session. Before the lockdown caused by COVID-19, the exhibition caused intense debates. The strong reactions were particularly prevalent amongst parents whose children had witnessed the exhibition as part of a school trip. A central part of the teaching session was encouraging students to come up with and explore arguments both for and against exposure of school children to these images. This article aims to contribute to knowledge about how educational strategies that challenge consensus may enable democratic arenas beyond hegemony.
Highlights
Parents rage against school after visit to art museum—perverted and sexualized.A group of 10-year-old school pupils were taken to a controversial art exhibition.Several parents were shocked when they saw the artworks
5th, 2020, by a colleague from my university with four words in the email subject: “Here we go again . . . ” My colleague was hinting at the reaction by members of the public to the exhibition Dry Joy by Finnish photographer Iiu Susiraja at Sørlandet Art Museum in Kristiansand, Norway
Them with a reading that I found to be relevant for the workshop. At this point, I feel it necessary to engage with two contrasting pedagogies: the first describes the dominance of dialogue-based art educational approaches in museums, while the second introduces the terms agonism and educational dissensus
Summary
Parents rage against school after visit to art museum—perverted and sexualized. A group of 10-year-old school pupils were taken to a controversial art exhibition. The responses encouraged me to engage with student teachers and expose them to this exhibition to see how they might interpret the relevance of such images and the social debates such works promote for educational purposes. These largely negative responses of parents made me ask questions about how such art can be used to explore issues of free speech, or in this instance, artistic freedom as a platform to engage directly with the subject of democracy. Afterwards, students wrote a reflection in which I asked them to explain their positions This included thoughts on the online teaching session approach I had deployed. My aim is to explore the potential of educational dissensus and agonism as approaches for preserving hegemonies, democracy and freedom of speech within an art educational context
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