A Ramble Through Space and Place Within the Field of Art Education

• In Event: Capitalizing Art Education: Mapping International Histories

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this presentation is to develop a line of inquiry that positions travel as a subset of art education’s preoccupation with space and place. This orientation has shifted the objects of its interests over the 20th century, drawing upon different communities of interest, different rationales for pedagogies, and different valuing of the relations between the two. In the wake of these conversations, individuals and communities have been drawn into the service of these shifting interests.

This inquiry is motivated by questions that include: What objects of study have art educations considered legitimate for study in the service of space and place? How have specific communities been leveraged in service to these professional interests? What forms of data visualization have been used to advance these interests and how have these forms contributed to the profession’s understanding and legitimization of this inquiry? What has the positioning of space and place provided inertia for both conservative and liberal interests in international study?

Theoretical Frameworks
This work will draw upon neo-pragmatic theories of use, which consider the contingent conditions of symbols, which shift in relation to practice. Tied to this framework are concepts of metaphor and metonymy which provide the cognitive means for these shifts to occur. The mapping of these shifts, the changing modes of visualization, and the performance of pedagogies are viewed through upon phenomenological perspectives on the activation of self.

Modes of inquiry:
This presentation will examine the pathways by which the objects of interest and methods of inquiry valued by professionals shift in relation to historical conditions and theoretical contexts. The inquiry will be grounded in historical methodologies oriented toward the structuring of art education as a field that frames itself in relation to space and place, as it moves itself toward the an emerging international self-image.

Data Sources:
This presentation will draw upon published materials in School Arts Magazine from 1901 to the present to identify ways in which the experience of travel was maintained as a motivation for art production by art teachers. Additional archival materials from Davis Publications, the Family archives of Phyllis Munsey, and Stanford University archives will be used to identify motivating sources for the professional development of teachers.

Results:
This presentation will result in a comparison of films, artwork, lessons, advertisements and essays. These forms bring to mind questions of how “international” conception of space and place were developed as educational tools. These initiatives often placing art as surrogate for travel, which was incorporated into art education’s professional identity.

Scholarly significance:
This work will provide art education scholars with the opportunity to consider historical shifts in the field in relation to orientations that influence contemporary practice. It considers emergent art education initiatives, which target specific objects of attention and classroom practices, which hold an underlying interest in space and place, which anchor the value of art for the field.

Author

• John Howell White, Kutztown University