Artist as Superconnector/ Superconductor: Pedagogical Provocations 23 March – 7 April 2017

Abstract

Artist as Superconnector/Superconductor: Pedagogical provocations an accompanying exhibition to the recent NAFAE Annual Symposium held on 24th March 2017, in the Lanchester Research Gallery, Graham Sutherland Building.

Artists frequently operate within a web of networks or ‘meshworks’, navigating complex situations and events, in creative (ex)-change. As active agents they are at times chameleonic, interconnected, charged, finding creative ways to work across and through the social, in dialogic relation, (directly and remotely). Sometimes inhabiting a fugitive space in institutional infrastructures or occupying para educational positions, they collaborate with others in diverse communities of practice to contribute to a rich social and cultural ecology.

This exhibition presents a series of creative responses that address these ideas and that critically reflect on the implications of collaborative, connected, dialogic and social modes of practice for Fine Art pedagogy at a point when arts education, the arts generally and the fabric of the social are being challenged.

The works presented here were selected from a national call, and have been co-created by students / artists / academics / researchers from across the UK. The exhibition has been curated by Jane Ball, Course Director for Fine Art and doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University. It forms part of the National Association for Fine Art Education (NAFAE) Annual Symposium, a one-day event-taking place on 24th March 2017, hosted by the Visual Arts Research Group, in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University.

NAFAE is the Subject Association for Fine Art education in the UK. It advocates the interests, promotion and cultural relevance of Fine Art education at Foundation, BA, MA and PhD levels. The Association aims to be instrumental in anticipating and shaping decisions that impact on the enhancement and future development of Fine Art by engaging with a range of constituencies.

The exhibition includes artwork by:-

Joe Woodhouse, University of Sunderland: Foundation Press,

John Hammersley, Independent artist educator: Conduct and Connectivity

Jane Ball, Coventry University: Carousel: Ruination and Reconnection

@.ac: The Precarious University