Visual Artists and visual art

educators looking for

social sustainability

InSEA European congress 2010 in Rovaniemi,

Lapland, Finland, 21-24 June 2010
L’ idiot du village
The United Nations
decade of education
for sustainable
development (2005-
2014
Sustainable development
populations, animal and plant
species, ecosystems, natural
resources fight against
poverty, gender inequality,
human rights. , education for
all, health, human security ,
intercultural dialogue
we live in the idolatry of
technique and technology ,
in oppression and
exploration ….we privilege
competition and
individuality disregarding
community orientated civic
behaviours, we assume
competence will improve
efficiency and we hope to
have more success than
the others

(Sábato, 2000:91-92).
We need to make a
decisive move
towards more
sustainable
development both
because it is the
right thing to do,
and because it is in
our long-term best
interests’
(defra.gov.uk).
take action for
change:

we have to ‘learn our

way’ out of current
social and
environmental
problems and learn
to live sustainably
(defra.gov.uk).
changing
behaviours
many visual art
educators are pushing
the boundaries of art
education, breaking
limits of areas of
knowledge,
technologies and
purposes of visual arts
education.
Many visual artists are
engaged in social
changes, addressing
polemic topics and
raising cutting edge
questions about
environment, social
justice, and other
important social issues.
‘we mend our child memories , while we
talk about what is hurting us and about our
dreams , we use embroidery as a pretext
to be together, the needle and the string
are the precious symbolic tools enabling
us to talk and listen to the others . We also
perform in public spaces, where we sat
down to mend and invite people to
embroider with us’

(Medellin ,Colombia, Rosalba Cano, 2-12-

2009).
The gipsies
• Feared and
respected

• Feared and
tolerated
• What happens when
artists are educators
and educators are
artists joining forces
to achieve small
changes in individual
lives fostering
environmental, social
and cultural
sustainability?
In the borders

• Art educators
• Artists
• Researchers
 Arts
• ‘connectedness/ collaboration,
• healing/ rescuing
• compassion/ transformation,
• rituals/ communion
• Reflection/action/ transformation
They are aware they
will not save the
world, but,
nevertheless they
are influencing
small communities
by taking political
action through
visual arts
education.
Patos al agua, Colombia
http://patosalagua1.blogspot.com/
‘El color y nuestros deseos de jugar
y reír son nuestro único material
bélico’ [2009-12-31 http://patosalagua1.blogspot.com/].
Slovenia,
Irena
ASSOL , Portugal
(http://www.assol.pt/)
‘Slowlybindingtogofaraway’
 Step by step
• Good practice in art education for
sustainable development is not only
developed by people in the frontiers
between artists and teachers but are also
developed in blurred territories.
"The conditions for creative work today are
set within an increasingly variable reality
that is best apprehended syncretically: a
process that demands transcultural,
transpersonal, and translaborative
perspectives."

Roy Ascott ( 2010)

 Towards sustainability : art
education as a tool for social
transformation
 Thanks

teresaeca@apecv.pt