Art.School.Differences – Researching Inequalities and Normativities in the field of Higher Art Education

Project X von Nadir Ak

Project X (Juni 2020) ist die Abschlussarbeit des Theaterpädagogen Nadir Ak an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK). Es untersucht spielerisch und reflexiv die Leitfrage „Warum Jugendliche aus Osteuropa und Asien in der Schweiz weniger mit Kunstformaten, wie z.B. Theater in Berührung kommen“ mit 4 Spielern aus den genannten Regionen. Nebst der Leitfrage beschäftigten sich die Spieler mit dem Thema Erinnerungen, ihrer Freundschaft und ihrem Verständnis von Kunst/ Theater. Der Dokumentarfilm besteht aus 2 filmisch festgehaltenen Proben vor Covid-19 und den Spieler-Kommentaren zum Film nach dem Lockdown.
Link zum Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGUZVYza_Uk
Link zum Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imDx0kriMCs&t=2173s

Am 21.10.2020 hat Nadir Ak für den Communis Kulturtag (Veranstaltung der PH FHNW) den Podcast „Es hätte auch irgendein anderes Stück sein können“ unter Mitarbeit von Sascha Willenbacher und Sophie Vögele erstellt. Im Podcast sind mehrheitlich bisher unveröffentlichtes Interviewmaterial zum Film enthalten.

Samstag, 12UTC%3 12. September 2020

SRF2-Beitrag zu Art.School.Differences

Deep Diversity in Institutionen: Ein steiniger Weg

Die Gesellschaft ist divers, bunt und vielfältig. In Kulturinstitutionen und Medienunternehmen ergibt sich oft ein anderes Bild. Wer bestimmt, was debattiert und worüber berichtet wird? Wer entscheidet, wer dazu gehört und wer nicht?

Am 22. November 2019 strahlte SRF2 die Kontext-Sendung «Deep Diversity in Institutionen: Ein steiniger Weg» mit dem Beitrag zum Forschungsprojekt «Art.School.Differences» aus. Sophie Vögele berichtete im Interview.

Die Sendung ist online abrufbar.

Montag, 27UTC%3 27. Januar 2020

: « _ ». Eine Monstersendung in Kurzfassung

Anwesende Abwesenheit. Because we care for transformations!
Die Monstersendung beschäftigt sich mit der anwesenden Abwesenheit von schillernder Geschlechtlichkeit. Deren Marginalisierung wurde in der Studie von Art.School.Differences deutlich, welche die Monstersendung zum Ausgangs- und Bezugspunkt nimmt, reicht aber weit darüber hinaus. Die anwesende Abwesenheit schillernder Geschlechtlichkeit ist ein komplexer, gesellschaftlicher Verdrängungseffekt. Dieser ist verwoben mit der gewaltsamen Durchsetzung von (neo-)kolonialen, klassistischen und ableistischen Machtverhältnissen. Es liegt dabei nicht immer so klar vor „uns”, was die gewaltsame Durchsetzung bedeutet und wer diese veranlasst. Die Durchsetzung von Machtverhältnissen hat System und ist weder auf die Intentionalität von Einzelpersonen noch von bestimmten Institutionen zu beschränken. Und doch sind Institutionen oder das Handeln einzelner Akteur_innen damit durchsetzt und bringen gewaltvolle Ausschlussformen hervor, die sich durch sie etablieren. Der Ausschluss effektuiert sich affektiv, bio- und nekropolitisch und bringt unzählige Mikroaggressionen oder massive Gewalt hervor, was nicht selten zum Tod führen kann.
Davon sind (Kunst-)Hochschulen genauso betroffen wie „unsere“ Wahrnehmung!
Daran sind (Kunst-)Hochschulen genauso beteiligt wie die deutsche Sprache – oft unbewusst, aber effektiv! In anderen Worten: Was sich individuell manifestiert, ist keineswegs als privates Einzelschicksal zu betrachten. Vielmehr ist es mit zurichtenden, institutionalisierten Prozessen verbunden, die sich auch in der virtuellen sowie analogen Architektur von Institutionen ausdrückt. Dabei kaschiert das unkritische Anführen von ‘Betroffenen’ aus dominanter Perspektive solche Prozesse sowie wirkmächtige Architekturen und erhält sie damit aufrecht. Für das Verständnis und die Transformation der komplexen machtvollen Disziplinierungs- und Herrschaftsprozesse bzw. deren Perpetuierung ist eine intersektionale Analyse notwendig. Hier erscheint eine Kurzfassung der Monstersendung. Darin konzentrieren sich die Moderation Y. Schreier und zwei Gäste – eine Fachperson, zu der später in der Sendung ein*e Aktivist_in dazukommt – darauf, der anwesenden Abwesenheit schillernder Geschlechtlichkeit in Art.School.Differences und allgemeiner im Kunsthochschulkontext nachzugehen, um damit verbundene Konsequenzen zu skizzieren. Es sind weisse Positionen. Eine erweiterte Fassung ist in Arbeit. Sobald erschienen, wird an dieser Stelle darauf verwiesen.
–> Zu : « _ ». Anwesende Abwesenheit. Because we care for transformations! Eine Monstersendung in Kurzfassung

Samstag, 06UTC%3 6. Oktober 2018

Kunst und Klasse

Von Musik über Schauspiel bis hin zum Mediendesign – das künstlerische Feld ist von Vielfalt gekennzeichnet. Deutlich weniger vielfältig ist die soziale Zusammensetzung der Studierenden an den Kunstuniversitäten. Vielmehr genießen künstlerische Studien, und mit ihnen das künstlerische Feld insgesamt, den fragwürdigen Ruf, eine Angelegenheit für privilegierte „rich white kids“ zu sein. Inwiefern dieses Bild der Realität entspricht und was gegebenenfalls dagegen getan werden kann, besprechen Sophie Vögele und Philippe Saner im Interview mit Florian Walter für die KUPFzeitung. Die Kurzversion des Interviews findet sich auf der Website der KUPF. Unter Publikationen sind die vollständigen bibliographischen Angaben.

Florian Walter: Als „Auswahl der Auserwählten“ beschreiben Sie im Abschlussbericht zu ihrem Projekt Art.School.Differences die Aufnahmeverfahren an Kunsthochschulen. Wer schafft es an einer Kunstuni aufgenommen zu werden, wer nicht? Welche spezifische Rolle spielt Klasse(nzugehörigkeit) im Verhältnis zu anderen Faktoren wie etwa Geschlecht und Ethnizität?
Sophie Vögele und Philippe Saner: Um zu verstehen, wer Zugang zum Kunsthochschulstudium hat ist es wichtig zuerst kurz auf die engen Verschränkungen zwischen den verschiedenen Identitätskategorien einzugehen und dabei vor allem hervorzuheben, dass es um Machtverhältnisse geht, die unterschiedlich wirken – wir orientieren uns hier am Konzept der Intersektionalität, wie es etwa von María do Mar Castro Varela und Nikita Dhawan verwendet wird.(1) Soziale Klassen, Geschlecht, Sexualität, race/Ethnizität und unsere Vorstellungen eines normativen Körpers sind historische Konstruktionen, die u.a. durch ein europäisches Verständnis einer aufgeklärten Moderne und in Abgrenzung zu den Kolonien etabliert wurden. Vorherrschende Bilder und Meinungen in unseren Köpfen bestätigen diese Verständnisse und definieren eine klar abgesetzte Norm. Unsere Studie zeigt deutlich auf, dass auch Schweizer Kunsthochschulen aus privilegierten Verhältnissen stammende, weisse, schweizerische, heterosexuelle Personen mit leistungsstarken, jungen und gesunden Körpern als Norm setzen. Alles was davon abweicht, wird als anders definiert. In der Verschränkung der Kategorien zeigt sich aber, dass gewisse Personen weder als anders klassifiziert werden noch die Möglichkeit haben, überhaupt in diesem Feld sichtbar zu sein. Bspw. ist der Zugang für ethnisch markierte und aus weniger privilegierten Verhältnissen stammende Leute nur sehr erschwert möglich. Personen, die als be/hindert oder körperlich beeinträchtigt erscheinen, müssen weiss sein und aus privilegierten Verhältnissen stammen, um als Andere aufzutauchen. Wenn also Personen mit weniger privilegiertem Hintergrund überhaupt aufgenommen werden, sind diese immer weiss, jung mit einem gesund anmutenden Körper. In diesem Sinne ist auch die „Auswahl der Auserwählten“ zu verstehen: Die Gruppe, die überhaupt in Frage kommt Zugang zur Kunsthochschule – und damit auch eine Sichtbarkeit – zu erhalten, setzt sich bereits aus „Auserwählten“ zusammen. Die Ausgrenzung aufgrund der Klassenzugehörigkeit kann deshalb nicht im Verhältnis zu anderen Diskriminierungskategorien verstanden werden, sondern ist nur in der Verschränkung mit diesen aufschlussreich. Diese Normierung der Studierenden – aber auch der Dozierenden und weiteren Mitarbeitenden der Kunsthochschulen – unterscheidet sich nicht wesentlich unter den Studiengängen.

Gibt es Unterschiede zu anderen Hochschulen?
In unserer Studie haben wir drei Schweizer Kunsthochschulen untersucht, die eine etwas andere Tradition als die österreichischen Kunstuniversitäten bzw. Akademien aufweisen. Die Tradition der Kunstgewerbeschule, die bis heute ein wichtiger Bezugspunkt für die Identität der heutigen Kunsthochschulen darstellt, hat sich lange durch die Zugänglichkeit für Kinder aus Arbeiter*innen- und Handwerker*innenfamilien ausgezeichnet – wobei allerdings Frauen bis weit in die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts marginalisiert blieben. Heute gehören die Kunsthochschulen im Schweizerischen Bildungssystem zu den Fachhochschulen, von denen sie sich in verschiedenen Punkten deutlich unterscheiden. Bezüglich der sozioökonomischen Herkunftsmilieus (gemessen an Berufen und Bildungsabschlüssen der Eltern der Studierenden) sind sie den Universitäten, und hier v.a. traditionellen Elite-Ausbildungen wie Medizin oder Jurisprudenz, deutlich näher. Ein wichtiger Grund für diese exklusive Zusammensetzung sind die strengen Aufnahmeverfahren, die im Schweizer Bildungssystem nur in der Medizin vorzufinden sind. Um diese bestehen zu können, bedarf es der jahrelangen künstlerischen Praxis und Vorbereitung, was wiederum nicht allen sozialen Klassen gleichermaßen zugänglich ist. Hinzu kommt, dass das Studium sehr anspruchsvoll, zeitintensiv und körperlich streng ist. Gerade in den darstellenden Disziplinen wie Schauspiel und Musik, teilweise aber auch in den anderen, ist bereits das Studium auf permanenten Wettbewerb ausgerichtet. Es stellt sich also nicht nur die Frage, wer kommt rein, sondern auch: wer verfügt über die notwendigen Ressourcen, um drin zu bleiben.

Um im Kulturbereich erfolgreich zu sein, braucht man ein finanzstarkes Elternhaus (und eine Eigentumswohnung), muss man sich in abgehobenen Kunstdiskursen mitteilen können und auf ein Netzwerk im Kunstbetrieb bauen können. Soweit die Annahme. Stimmt das? Und was hat das alles mit „Klasse“ zu tun?
Wie schon erwähnt sind für eine erfolgreiche Aufnahme und dann auch noch ein erfolgreiches Studium alle genannten Ressourcen notwendig. Wenn davon etwas nicht aufgebracht werden kann, muss es kompensiert werden durch noch bessere Leistungen etc. Beispielsweise gibt es die Möglichkeit für Aufnahmen sur dossier, etwa wenn der erforderliche Bildungsabschluss (in der Regel eine Maturität) fehlt. In der Terminologie der Kapitalien nach Bourdieu entspricht die Norm an Kunsthochschulen einer privilegierten Herkunft: Sie stammen überwiegend aus den Klassen der soziokulturellen Professionellen bzw. Semi-Professionellen(2) wie Künstler*innen, Lehrpersonen, Akademiker*innen etc. – also denjenigen Berufen, zu denen sie als Absolvent*innen von Kunsthochschulen teilweise selbst zählen werden. Hier bildet sich also ein auch gesamtgesellschaftlich betrachtet überaus hohes Mass an sozialer Reproduktion ab. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass insbesondere kulturelles und soziales Kapital, das nicht bereits von zu Hause mitgebracht wird, anderweitig kompensiert werden muss. Dies führt sinngemäß zu zusätzlichen Belastungen, die neben einem intensiven Studium, Erwerbsarbeit und z.T. auch Betreuungsverpflichtungen für nicht-weisse, aus nicht privilegierten Verhältnissen stammende Personen sehr schwierig zu stemmen sind. Zusätzlich problematisch hierbei ist, dass sich diese Prozesse des Ausschlusses aus dem Kunsthochschulfeld nur punktuell zeigen und sonst verdeckt bleiben: Ausgeschlossene suchen Erklärungen in ihren persönlichen Präferenzen und Leistungen, das Scheitern wird als individuelles Versagen betrachtet. Eine Auswahl wird von allen Akteur*innen (Kandidat*innen wie Dozierenden) als notwendig erachtet – gerade auch von denjenigen, die aufgrund nicht-normativer Hintergründe oder Erfahrungen mit institutionellen Diskriminierungen rechnen müssen. Die beschriebene vorherrschende Norm an Schweizerischen Kunsthochschulen (unter 1a) definiert nicht nur die Auserwählten, sondern verbirgt auch die Prozesse von Ein- und Ausschluss, die zur Entstehung dieser Gruppe notwendig sind: Es kann von einer Camouflage von Diskriminierung durch Normierung gesprochen werden.

Ist die Ungleichheit an Kunstuniversitäten nur eine Fortsetzung der Auswahl in den Kindergärten und Schulen? Oder wählen Unis anders aus als Kindergärten, Volks- und Mittelschulen?
Selbstverständlich finden Praktiken von Ein- und Ausschluss schon vorher in den unterschiedlichen Vorbildungen statt. Und die Kunsthochschulen können aus den bereits vorausgewählten Kandidat*innen auswählen – „es kommt bereits alles gemacht“, wie es ein Dozierender in einem Interview formulierte. Diverse Reformen in der Hochschulpolitik (Einführung des Fachhochschulstatus, die Bologna-Reformen und die Fusion verschiedener Hochschulen) in den 1990er und 2000er Jahren haben dazu geführt, dass sich die frühere Heterogenität der Zugangswege markant reduzierte, während gleichzeitig die gymnasiale Maturität mit Anteilen zwischen 50–70% zum eigentlichen Standard wurde. Die soziale Exklusivität des Feldes erhöht sich also auch über die unterschiedlichen schulischen Zugangswege und bildet somit die elterlichen Bildungshintergründe bzw. Berufsklassen ab. Allerdings hat unsere Studie auch gezeigt, dass die Aufnahmeverfahren selbst nicht immer linear funktionieren: Kandidat*innen können vorgezogen werden und einzelne Ausbildungsphasen überspringen, wenn ihr „Talent“ als besonders groß erachtet wird. Andere wiederum werden in ‚Warteschlaufen‘ (weitere Vorbereitungskurse) geschickt, mit der Bitte, es doch im nächsten Jahr nochmal zu versuchen. Die verschiedenen Vorläuferinstitutionen (künstlerische Gymnasien, Vorkurse und Vorstudium etc.) sind oft miteinander verknüpft, es bestehen auch personelle Austauschbeziehungen, ‚man kennt sich‘. In dieses Feld überhaupt reinzukommen und sich darin behaupten zu können, ist insofern sicherlich eine wichtige Voraussetzung. Neben der ‚offiziellen‘ Auswahl im Prozess der Aufnahmeverfahren sind des weiteren spezifische Informations- und Adressierungspolitiken zu nennen, bspw. in gedruckten Materialien oder Webauftritten: Hier hat unsere Studie auch gezeigt, dass die Kunsthochschulen nicht einfach alle potentiellen Kandidierenden ansprechen, sondern durch Bilder und Texte ganz bestimmte Gruppen adressieren, während viele gar nicht erst auftauchen. Hier sind insbesondere Kandidat*innen aus migrantischen Arbeiter*innenmilieus zu nennen, denen die Fähigkeit abgesprochen wird, sich überhaupt im Umfeld einer Kunsthochschule bewegen zu können.

Die Einkommensverteilung entwickelt sich zunehmend auseinander. Die Reichen werden reicher, die Armen ärmer. Welche Folgen hat das auf den Kunstbetrieb? Werden sich bald nur mehr Rich Kids leisten können, Kunst und Kultur zu machen?
Wir haben die zunehmende Ungleichheit in der Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung nicht spezifisch untersucht. Was die Kunsthochschulen allerdings gegenüber anderen Schulen und Hochschulen auszeichnet, sind die Internationalisierungsbestrebungen, was an die vorherige Antwort anschließt: Unsere Studie hat gezeigt, dass vermehrte Rekrutierung von sogenannten ‚internationalen Studierenden‘ ganz deutlich zu einer Verstärkung der existierenden sozialen und kulturellen Ungleichheiten beiträgt. Studierende mit transnationalen Biografien, die sich in verschiedenen Sprachen eloquent im Kunstfeld bewegen können, sind natürlich gerne gesehen. Zum notwendigen kulturellen und sozialen Kapital kommt spezifisch bei diesen Studierenden viel ökonomisches Kapital sowie die ‚richtige‘ Staatsangehörigkeit hinzu, die solche Arbeits- und Lebensweisen überhaupt ermöglichen. Wie ja auch die Studie von Barbara Rothmüller zur Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien gezeigt hat, sind ökonomisch gut situierte Studierenden aus EU-Mitgliedsstaaten deutlich übervertreten.(3) Insofern wird die zunehmende Internationalisierung bestimmt Folgen für den Kunstbetrieb haben; welche, darüber können wir allerdings bloß spekulieren.

Wie haben sich Zugangsbarrieren an Kunstunis in den vergangenen Jahren/Jahrzehnten entwickelt? In welchen Bereichen gibt es einen Anstieg der Zugangsungleichheit?
Wir konnten die Zugangsbarrieren nicht in einer historisch-vergleichenden Perspektive untersuchen. Was sich allerdings aus den Ergebnissen zur sozialen Zusammensetzung der Studierenden bezüglich elterlichen Berufsgruppen und Bildungsmilieus sowie den genannten Internationalisierungsbestrebungen andeutet, ist eine deutliche Zunahme von Studierenden aus sozioökonomisch privilegierten Milieus mit hohem kulturellen Kapital – dies betrifft insbesondere die stark internationalisierten Bereiche der Kunsthochschulen, wie die klassische Musik und die bildende Kunst. Schauspiel mit seinem Fokus auf die deutsche Sprache, Design und künstlerische Vermittlung (Lehramt) in geringerem Ausmaß, weil diese noch stärker auf die hiesigen Kunst- bzw. Arbeitsmärkte ausgerichtet sind.

Was spricht dagegen, dass nur mehr Rich Kids Kunst studieren? Wie bringen wir mehr Kinder aus Arbeiter/innenfamilien an die Kunstunis? Warum überhaupt sollten Arbeiterkinder an die Kunstuni wollen, wenn danach ein prekäres Künstler/innenleben auf sie wartet?
Zunächst einmal scheint es uns wichtig darauf hinzuweisen, dass Kunsthochschulen – wie auch andere Institutionen des Kunstfeldes wie Museen, Theater oder Opernhäuser – als öffentlich finanzierte Bildungsinstitutionen für alle zugänglich sein sollten. Gerade im Wissen um die sozialen ungleichen Zugangsbedingungen – die Erkenntnis ist ja keineswegs neu, wenn man an die Arbeiten Bourdieus in den 1960er Jahren denkt – sollten diese kontinuierlich an der Öffnung und Demokratisierung der Zugangswege und auch ihrer eigenen Strukturen arbeiten. Das geschieht im Kunstfeld in regelmäßigen Abständen schon, nur allzu oft verpuffen die Bemühungen nach einer gewissen Zeit. Außerdem handelt es sich um ein Feld, das obwohl prekarisiert, weiterhin ein hohes Ansehen genießt und mit Versprechungen von Offenheit, Innovation und Kreativität operiert. Wie etwa die Arbeiten zum „neuen Geist des Kapitalismus“(4) gezeigt haben, wurden diese Begriffe und Konzepte längst auf andere Bereiche übertragen und haben insofern gesellschaftliche Wirkungsmacht erlangt. Auch scheint uns wichtig einzubringen, dass Kunst eine Vielfalt an wirkmächtiger „Sprache“ bemüht, die kritisch und politisch sein kann. Es scheint uns deshalb grundlegend, dass nicht nur eine kleine Gruppe von „Auserwählten“ auf Bühnen auftritt oder Filmszenarien schreibt, sondern stattdessen die gesellschaftliche Diversität der Kultur- und Kunstschaffenden, die es jenseits der Kunsthochschulen ja durchaus gibt, in den genannten Institutionen auch repräsentiert wird.

Wie können die Zugangsbarrieren verringert werden? Werden Maßnahmen – etwa seitens der Kunsthochschulen oder der Politik – umgesetzt oder sind sie möglicherweise gar nicht erwünscht? Will man lieber unter sich bleiben?
Wir haben in unserem Abschlussbericht auf sechs verschiedene Handlungsfelder hingewiesen, die von den Aufnahmeverfahren und deren Ausgestaltung (bspw. Informationspolitiken, finanzielle Anforderungen, Auswahlkriterien) über die Curricula und die Bedingungen während des Studiums bis hin zu den Organisationsstrukturen und Politiken der Hochschulen reichen. Neben der Adressierung konkreter Mechanismen des Ein- und Ausschlusses von Kandidat*innen ging es auch um organisatorische, letztlich gesellschaftliche Fragen demokratischer und inklusiver Prozesse innerhalb der Kunsthochschulen und darüber hinaus. Leider hat sich allerdings sehr großer institutioneller Widerstand gezeigt, den wir nicht nachvollziehen können: eine zeitgemäße, kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den Erkenntnissen der Studie und mit Diversität (5), d.h. mit gesellschaftlichen Vorstellungen und der intersektionalen Verschränkung von Klasse, Geschlecht, Sexualität, race/Ethnizität und Körper und ihren Auswirkungen in Aufnahmeverfahren, Studium und Curricula sollte zum Kerninhalt der institutionellen Hochschul- und Qualitätsentwicklung werden. Dies würde langfristig den Bestrebungen nach mehr internationaler Visibilität und gleichbleibenden oder sogar steigenden Bewerber*innenzahlen entsprechen wie eine niederschwellige Weiterführung der Auseinandersetzung in einem Studiengang Bachelor Art Education gezeigt hat. Die Hochschulen unterstützen bisher diese Initiativen nicht obwohl das im Wortlaut ziemlich exakt auf die Formulierung ihrer strategischen Ziele passt und haben sich – wenn überhaupt – lediglich mit den ‚technischen Fragen‘ wie der Formulierung von Aufnahmekriterien beschäftigt. Es scheint uns, dass die Verweigerung der Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Inhalten auf die Sicherung eigener Privilegien und der Wahrung bestehender Machtverhältnisse innerhalb der Hochschulen zurück zu führen sind.

Wie wirkt sich die Ungleichheit an den künstlerischen Hochschulen auf den Kunstbetrieb im Allgemeinen aus? Welche Handlungsaufträge ergeben sich für Kulturhäuser, Theater, Museen, etc.?
Bisher haben wir uns nicht konkret mit anderen Institutionen des Kunstfeldes befasst. Trotzdem scheinen uns die identifizierten Handlungsfelder aufgrund unserer Studie auch für Museen, Theater oder Opernhäuser relevant zu sein: Wir erachten eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Machtverhältnissen, die das Kunstfeld und Gesellschaft überhaupt regieren, als notwendig. Die Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Fragen sollte weder an künstlerische Produktionen, die dies in unterschiedlicher Form ja durchaus verhandeln, noch an die institutionell schwach positionierten Gleichstellung- bzw. Diversity-Fachstellen ‚ausgelagert‘ werden. Die eigenen Prozesse und Verfahren diesbezüglich kontinuierlich zu befragen mit dem Ziel deren Veränderung sollte zu einem der Kernanliegen der jeweiligen Organisationen und ihrer weiteren Entwicklung werden.

Florian Walter ist Politologe und Kulturarbeiter, u.a. beim Kulturverein `waschaecht‘ (Wels, Österreich) und Vorstand der Kulturplattform Oberösterreich

(1) Castro Varela, María do Mar/Dhawan, Nikita (2011): Soziale (Un)Gerechtigkeit. Kritische Perspektiven auf Diversity, Intersektionalität und Antidiskriminierung. Berlin: LIT.
(2) Die Bezeichnung entnehmen wir Oesch, Daniel (2006): Redrawing the Class Map. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
(3) Rothmüller, Barbara (2010): BewerberInnen-Befragung am Institut für Bildende Kunst 2009. Wien: Akademie der bildenden Künste. Online unter: https://www.akbild.ac.at/Portal/organisation/uber-uns/Organisation/arbeitskreis-fur-gleichbehandlungsfragen/endbericht.pdf?set_language=de&cl=de (letzter Zugriff: 31.05.2018).
(4) Boltanski, Luc/Chiapello, Eve (2003): Der neue Geist des Kapitalismus. Konstanz: UVK.
(5) Steyn, Melissa (2015): Critical diversity literacy. In Vertovec, Steven (Hrsg.), Routledge International Handbook of Diversity Studies. New York & Abingdon: Routledge, 379-389.

Donnerstag, 21UTC%3 21. Juni 2018

Adressieren! Studierende mit Migrationserfahrung und nicht normativem Bildungsweg am BA Art Education, ZHdK

Ermitteln von inkludierenden Massnahmen in der Bewerbung und Rekrutierung von Kandidat_innen des Studiengangs BAE an der ZHdK
Kooperation mit dem Bachelor Art Education, ZHdK (Peter Truniger)
Datenerhebung und Auswertung: Juni–Dezember 2017. Wichtigste Ergebnisse und erste Umsetzungsideen. An der Datenerhebung und Auswertung sind beteiligt: Sophie Vögele (Projektleitung), Gianna Brühwiler und Şebnem Efe
Ausarbeitung eines Massnahmenkatalogs: Januar–Juni 2018 in Zusammenarbeit mit den Dozierenden BAE

Wir konnten feststellen, dass die Gruppe der Menschen mit Migrationserfahrung unter den Studierenden in der ZHdK und so auch beim Bachelor Art Education unterrepräsentiert ist (s. FORSCHUNGSVORHABEN Art.School.Differences und exemplarisch die Folien zum Vortrag Exclusion inside out an der PARSE Konferenz). Deshalb geht ‚Adressieren‘ der Frage nach, welche strukturellen Hürden sich für nicht-normative Studierende im Studiengang stellen, wie diesen begegnet werden kann und wie der Studiengang für Studierende mit Migrationserfahrung und solchen ohne normativen Bildungsweg attraktiver gemacht werden könnte.

Projektgegenstand ist das Ermitteln der Bedürfnisse von Kandidat_innen mit nicht-normativem Bildungsweg. Dabei sind von ihnen entwickelte Strategien für eine erfolgreiche Bewerbung und Durchlaufen des Studiums sehr aufschlussreich um mögliche Massnahmen in der Bewerbung und Rekrutierung des Studiengangs BAE zu entwickeln. Daraus leiten sich Anpassungen der Webseite und die Schaffung von Anlaufstellen und zugänglicheren Informationsgefässen ab. Es können sich auch mögliche Anpassungen des Curriculums oder der Studienanforderungen ergeben, die diese inklusiver oder flexibler gestalten. Ziel der Untersuchung ist somit, im Aussenauftritt und in der Bewerbung des Studiengangs explizit Studierende mit nicht-normativem Bildungsweg anzusprechen. Darüber hinaus wird eine Sensibilisierung im Bachelor Art Education für Fragen der Inklusion und Exklusion von Studierenden angestrebt und gemeinsam mit den Dozierenden das Anstossen eines Prozesses der nachhaltigen Auseinandersetzung mit eigenen Strukturen und deren Anpassung und eventuellen Veränderung erprobt.

Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse beinhalten einige konkrete Massnahmen die im BAE teilweise schon umgesetzt wurden.
Die weitere Entwicklung von Massnahmen sowie Sensibilisierung und Anstossen eines Prozesses der nachhaltigen Auseinandersetzung gemeinsam mit den Dozierenden und der Administration wurde im 2018 weiter verfolgt (s. dazu den Beitrag Zugang und Teilhabe am Hochschulstudium). Aktuell ist die Realisierung von grösseren Massnahmen und curricularen Anpassungen aufgrund der Reorganisation des gesamten Departements sistiert.

Dienstag, 28UTC%3 28. November 2017

PARSE conference 2017 EXCLUSION

The 2017 biennal PARSE conference on EXCLUSION tackled very current questions of inequality, neocoloniality and legitimacy as they are expressed and produced through culture and cultures of artistic education.
November 15–17, 2017. Venue: Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, Gothenburg, Sweden.
copyright of photo: Minjeong Ko, Globala Tanter at PARSE Gothenburg, 2017

The conference was structured in 6 strands:
Indigeneity is for many a politically enabling construct in resisting ongoing colonialisms, expropriations, and associated epistemic violence. It is also marked by multiple exclusions: conceptually, as irredeemably rooted in essentialism, primordialism and primitivism; strategically, as counter-productively factionalising and exoticising; juridically and pragmatically, as untenable within the various regimes of globalisation.
Educational exclusion addresses mono-cultural aspects of arts education as well as proposes how education in the arts can be fundamentally reshaped to become more accountable to manifold embodied knowledge practices.
Colonisation and Decolonisation addresses colonial and master paradigms in the arts as well as institutional, communal and collective perspectives and looks to strategies for a new arts and humanities that embraces epistemic and disciplinary disobedience, non-capitalist, pluri-national institutions and modes of aesthetic production.
Geographies of Exclusion addresses how social, cultural, political and economic barriers produce and sustain public spaces, public spheres, public memory, borders and migrants and their experiences of movement through the logic of circulation managed, controlled, and regulated by state authorities, public institutions, NGOs and private firms. It also addresses how such dominating modes of productions can be transgressed through civil counter-actions and independent self-organised practices.
Vocabularies of Exclusion focuses on forms of exclusion produced through language as well as embodied and discursive practices. Reflecting on the terms and conditions of artistic and political work in cross-disciplinary contexts, it explores and interrogates languages of inclusion, separation, and participation as they are produced and enacted in the present moment in the field of cultural production and its context in wider socio-political arenas.
Participation as Exclusion deals with the fact that „participatory turn“ in cultural production, urban development, and so forth is now a dominant theme in Western art and design discourses and practices as well municipal governance, where it has moved from a marginalised area of community practice into the mainstream. This consideration inquires who the subjects of participation are and how and from where they were selected. It addresses questions such as Why are certain people seen to be in greater need of receiving participatory „support“? How, if at all, is power and decision-making redistributed?

Art.School.Differences was present in the Educational Exclusion strand with a presentation about: Exclusion from inside out: The intersectional working of class in artistic education. Refer to the web for the abstract. See the powerpoint presentation Exclusion inside out for download.

To watch the conference keynotes online, please refer to PARSE conference Afterwards. Meanwhile the Parse Journal „Exclusion“, Issue 8 Autumn 2018 with conference contributions has been published.

For an action plan to curb ongoing exlusion of minority groups, refer to the list proposed by Craig Wilkins during his talk that he made available for our blog.
Refer also to the Manifesto launched at PARSE Exclusion Conference November 2017. The Manifesto is the result of a two-day Learning Lab inspired by the self-organising work of the Restad Gård Support Group Network at Akademin Valand, Göteborgs Universitetet (see also Kultur i Väst). The Manifesto author’s shared aim is to highlight the current realities of social and cultural segregation effecting asylum-seekers and refugee communities living in Gothenburg and to make improvements to this situation. The Manifesto has been collectively drafted by members of the Restad Gård Self-Support Group Network, representatives from Valand Academy, Outgrain, Counterpoints Arts and individuals from a range of arts and educational organisations in Gothenburg in the surrounding Västra Göteland region.
We are inviting organisations regionally, nationally and internationally to sign up to the Manifesto. Please contact Adndan Abdul Ghani or Denise Langridge Mellion by e-mail: Adnan.Abdul.Ghani@rb.se or denise.mellion@akademinvaland.gu.se.

Montag, 27UTC%3 27. November 2017

A double-quoted world

Blog entry on Art.School.Differences: bit.ly/a_s_d; 31.10.2017
Paola De Martin,

—
“I really don‘t like words like ‘artist’, or ‘integrity’ or ‘courage’ or ‘nobility’. I have a kind of distrust of all these words, because I don’t really know what they mean, any more than I really know what such words as ‘democracy’ or ‘peace’ or ‘pace-loving’ or ‘warlike’ or ‘integration’ mean. […] The terrible thing is that the reality behind these words depends ultimately on what the human being (meaning every single one of us) believes to be real. The terrible thing is that the reality behind all these words depends on choices one has got to make, for ever and ever and ever, every day.” (James Baldwin)
—
Introduction
In November 2016 I was invited to hold a workshop (for the description refer to PARCOURS) for the Final Symposium of Art.School.Differences Because it’s 2016. Challenging inclusion and exclusion at Swiss art schools. I presented and worked with material from my ongoing PhD-research (run-time: Sept. 2014–2019). For this workshop I emphazised the epistemic phenomenon I call “a double-quoted world”. The title of my PhD-research is Give us a break! On the taste-biography of designers featuring a working class background in metropolitan Zurich (1970–2010). Interviews with designers are the primary oral sources of my work – designers form different subfields of design, born between the late 1940s and the early 1990s. Some have the Swiss passport, some don’t, but that’s not the main question here, neither the difference made by sex, gender and race. Although my intersectional analysis does take different axes of discrimination into account, my interest focuses on what the interviewees have in common: a pronounced social upward mobility from the lower classes of society into the field of design. I combine the oral sources with visual material mentioned in the interviews or handed out to me by the interviewees. The centre of my interest is the question: What does it mean to become a designer, when socialized in the working classes during the era of neo-liberalism in Zurich? This includes also asking: what does this mean to me – since I feature this “background” too – ? I put “background” between double-quotes, because I actually don’t like to use the term in my context so much anymore. As I realized during the research process and will show below, former working class cultures and spaces are an important source of inspiration for designers, and for this reason working class attitudes morphed into a stunning present of our designed “foreground”. How can you possibly get along within this transformation when moving upward form the working classes? In what ways can you possibly move upward? How can these possibilities be described objectively, i.e. without mystifying these paths?
In my analysis, the collected oral histories function like special lenses that allow us to answer these questions and to understand the overwhelming aesthetic impact of social life. The phenomenon of “a double-quoted world” shows how designers with working class background deconstruct categories of aesthetic quality, such as “formalism”, “reductionism”, “functionalism”, etc. The common sense of good taste takes these categories as universal, and not as socially bound ones. Two dimensions of my analytical compass turned out to be useful, when arguing against the common sense of universalism in good taste. First, the historical, diachronic dimension, i.e. the continuities and discontinuities in the relationship between the milieus of the working classes and the field of design. Second, the sociological, synchronous dimension: i.e. the quality of this relationship in our post-modern, neoliberal or globalized present. Both dimensions are also interwoven in this blog entry. Now, before addressing the topic of my workshop, I will first provide an outline of my research in which it is situated.

Neo-liberalism, the working classes and the field of design in Zurich
Since the late 1970s Zurich’s social structure has undergone a massive change. In this respect, Zurich, the hot spot of my local case study, is comparable to other cities. When presenting my research in an international context, I often hear similar stories like the ones I present here, from London, Izmir, Copenhagen, Toronto, Warsaw, New York or even Ahmedabad and Saigon. What characterizes the change is first the decline of huge productive infrastructures of material labour – in Zurich for example the machine construction industries in the neighbourhood of Zurich-Oerlikon, the industrial milk production factories, the turbine and the detergent industries in the Zurich Industriequartier, the textile industry in Zurich Altstetten, the huge beer industry at Zurich’s riverside of the Limmat, the industrial paper mills at Zurich’s riverside of the Sihl – and second the gentrification of these areas, their social cleansing and takeover by what is called “immaterial labour” (Lazzarato, 1996). Zurich, coined “Rotes Zurich” – meaning the “red city” of the interwar period, a former socialist city with a strong worker’s presence and representation rooted in the socialist movement – is now well known as a centre for finance, higher education, insurance, IT and art & design with international reputation. Social democrats and the green party are representing the majority of the voters in the city’s executive, but their red-green rule is almost completely middle class based today. In the meantime, also the student body of the art & design school has changed. The former Kunstgewerbeschule deliberately attracted worker’s and craftsmen’s sons during the interwar period (not so much daughters, then) – I thereby think of iconic figures like Gottfried Honegger or Richard Paul Lohse. During the Cold War and the golden decades of Keynesian welfare, the school was still quite open to descendants of the skilled workers or craftsmen, such as Willy Guhl or Franco Clivio, for example. Today, due to Bologna reforms and the academization of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) – merger of the major branches of the Zurich educational art institutions since 2007 – the student body of the design department has become similar to the one of the humanities in Swiss universities, such as the University of Zurich. It is dominated by middle or upper middle class adherents, whose parents are well appointed with cultural capital. The loss of talent and potential on the paths from lower classes to higher education is diagnosed by social historians and sociologists as the effect of manifold practices of discrimination that upward-movers must encounter along their way; the metaphor of a “leaky pipeline” is used to illustrate this. There is quite a wide range of scholarly work about this effect. In Switzerland, especially Margrit Stamm’s research stands out (Stamm 2016). None of the studies, whatsoever, look closer at the field of design in Switzerland, with the outstanding exception of the Art.School.Differences project.
And what does it mean to become a designer, when socialized in a working class that has almost disappeared? What did it mean for me? When studying textile design in the 1990s at the Schule für Gestaltung Zurich (today: ZHdK) and even more when being a practitioner, I was first overwhelmed by the way my professors and my peers embraced the new empty post-industrial spaces, by how they turned them quickly and enthusiastically into studios, party locations, art spaces and lofts. Born 1965, I rank among a generation that still can recur to the memory of tattoos, soccer, boxing, bodybuilding, big cars, bling-bling, pop-music, precarious work, physical production inside industrial spaces, transgressive styles and sexually overemphasized attitudes as solely belonging to the lower classes. This radically changed during the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was electrified by the general playfulness and productivity in adopting former modes of lifestyle from the workers, be it in a more sublime or in a more carnivalesque way.
But I also was irritated: Why where designers making fun of the poor? Why where they making poor cultures more sublime, as if poor peoples were the raw material for the real virtue of style? What was so great about this dirty emptiness, this sudden silence of the machine age? What would all the unskilled people do for a living, when all these industries disappeared? So, very soon, my bewilderment mutated into confusion, and confusion into an intangible shame about my real worker’s child past. The French intellectual and sociologist Didier Eribon, in his wonderful sociological self-analysis Retour à Reims calls this kind of shame “social shame” because of its rather political than psychological implications. Being a worker’s child himself and gay, Eribon highlights the fact that in the era of neo-liberalism it was so much easier for him to reject in public the imposition of his sexual than of his “social shame” (Eribon 2016, 19–20). Both deal with the limitations of normativity, one with the heterosexual and the other with the middle class normativity, but the latter is so much less discussed and debated – maybe because it is a new phenomenon we still have to reflect? I can say for sure that in Zurich from the late 1970s on I began to feel my lower class past becoming the loser’s past. But this was an incredibly quick and complex transformation, too tricky to keep up consciously since I was merely a child and teenager then. Talking with Karl Marx, I was „alienated“ from the historical context that shaped my shame (Marx 1957ff., vol. 3, 72 and vol. 40, 512). To survive the changes I displaced the consciousness for being conceived as a neoliberal loser. I displaced the same consciousness for my parents and their friends, and the children of their friends. That was not as bad as it may sound, alienation can be very dazzling. In fact, only today I can see clearly that I was yet very much attracted by the dazzling field of design because of its alienating, illusionary and ahistorical aura.

“Illusio” and other useful terms – a brief excurse into sociology and Zurich’s design scene
The terms “rupture“, “habitus”, “illusio“ etc., that I like to use, are sociological terms, coined first by Pierre Bourdieu and adapted from other scholars ever since, to whom I owe my greatest respect. They helped me to understand the deep political and historical implication of my “social shame” in the design field. A short explanation of these terms situated in the context of Zurich might help the readers, too.
“Illusio“ after Pierre Bourdieu means the faith in the reality of the game you are playing in a very specific professional “field”. Every “field”, e.g. “the field of education”, “the field of the arts”, “the field of science” or the “field of economy” etc., creates its own “illusio”. “Illusio” therefore is the faith or belief that the inputs and outputs of what is at stake are of value (Bourdieu 1996, especially 330–336). For the field of design – or, more precisely, the subfield of design in the greater field of the arts – the “illusio” creates the deep belief that what talented designers really do are beautiful, meaningful and functioning things, and that it is really worth putting all your skills and ambitions to reach this aim. Bourdieu’s concept of “illusio” is helpful to investigate the sober facts behind it. Only then you see how the social structure of inequality within the field is being shaped – beyond the veil, so to speak, of all agents. Inside the field of design and beyond the veil of its “illusio” lies the sober fact that what talented designers do are status objects – and status knowledge of Swiss society is therefore the crucial knowledge for a successful designer in Zurich.
Because the recognition of this factual reality behind the veil would somehow spoil the “illusio”, it must be displaced. But how is this displacement working, and why is it working so well? On a general level, these questions were the driving force behind all endeavours of Bourdieu’s sociology. One of my students once said, after reading Bourdieu in my class, that talking explicitly about the making of status with designers is like talking about what you do while you are seducing somebody. Following her striking remark, one could say that designers are trained to make status differences look sexy. To understand how and why the displacement of status knowledge is working so well, and in Zurich’s design scene it is working extremely well, the concept of “habitus” is helpful. “Habitus” is a set of practices and judgements that are conceived by the common sense to be quite natural. For example, one of the experts of the field, I also interviewed, said that it seems quite natural that a working class child would never become a designer. This naturalization is the effect of a forgotten history under the practical shortage of everyday life, a history that is full of status angst, social struggles and power games. Instead of being outspoken and part of the common design narration in Zurich, these histories are embodied, passed over by attitudes and judgements, performed and re-enacted by the uses of language and by institutional rules from generation to generation – without reflection.
A “rupture“ or “break” in sociological terms defines a moment in life, when specific strategies that you have internalized as a child and teenager in your milieu – your quasi-natural “habitus” – all of a sudden become disfunctional under other circumstances. This “rupture” can be caused by a change of the milieu and/or by a historical change of the social structure as a whole. My interviewees experience both. In fact, I found that they are “rupture” experts after making the effort to understand their statements hidden behind the narrow social limits of their speech. A “rupture” or “break” in this context doesn’t mean a physical or psychological trauma, but rather an epistemic shock. The social world doesn’t make sense in a natural way anymore, it becomes, as the title of my workshop indicates, “a double-quoted world”. It is within these “ruptures” that the forgotten histories of the social struggles in the field of design come to the surface. Some of them are very old, and date back to imperialism of free trade in the 19th century and to World War I. Some of them are younger, they relate our conflicts today to the Great Depression of the 1930s, to World War II, to the Cold War or to the economic crisis of the 1970s. I go into more detail in my dissertation and try to unveil the strong impact that these conflicts have had inside the field of design when it comes to its relationship to the working classes.
It is important to highlight that experiencing an epistemic “rupture” or “break” per se isn’t necessarily a negative experience. Social movements explicitly induce epistemic “breaks”. The feminist critique of “phallo-centrism“, the queer critique of “hetero-normativity“, the postcolonial critique of “euro-centrism“ and “white normativity” – in a very powerful and politically public manner – deconstruct the “illusio” of a naturalized social order. By doing so, they upset the deep faith of the patriarchal, heterosexual, white and western hegemony in culture. But how about class in culture, especially in the design culture of Zurich?

Seeking for appeasement – believing in design
To experience the shock of a “rupture” in a productive way it takes, first of all, reflexivity and then the support of peer groups, for this reason I call my dissertation project Give us a break! It is the attempt to regain the lost public space and the lost public terms of social thinking. I lost my peer group during the late 1970s and the 1980s when I went to high school, the first one in my family since generations and the only one of my whole working class neighbourhood. I also lost reflexivity because of the tensions that were threatening my parents, my sister and my whole milieu during the structural changes in Zurich, as I mentioned above. Today, I can clearly see that I wanted to believe in the “illusio” of the design world because it looked to me as if it was a safe realm – completely untouched by social tensions. I desperately wanted to escape from the harsh violence of the ongoing changes, and my skills and diligence allowed me to enter the world of creativity, of constructive talent and beauty as it was displayed to me in the design school: a wonderful, unspoiled, eternal and magic sphere. Religious connotations are obvious here. I believed in the universal embrace of good taste, in the complete modesty of modernist reductionism, in the unlimited longevity of sustainable design, in the ideologically boundless release given by post-modern irony, in the total approval of transgression by trash, in the socially infinite inclusion of kitsch by its campy sophistication, in craft as the truly unspoiled reference for industrious creativity, in the absolute rule of talent as the only legitimate means for success – and by doing so I learned in an absent-minded way to disdain my former working class self. But that is not all I did. In the context of neo-liberalism and postmodernism it is important to say that I also adapted myself unconsciously to a new symbolic competitiveness and scooped a most valuable resource to make ends meet: my insight into the intimate dreams of the wannabes. I did my part to provide the former industrial spaces with commodified phantoms of my own recent past.
Of course I felt that on the long run something was going terribly wrong, but I displaced this knowledge to keep going. After all, I had put so much time, energy and money to get there. Under these circumstances, being a design student with a strong connection to friends and families of my working class milieu, and even more being a practitioner was a long intensifying nightmare. A nightmare, speaking with Sigmund Freud, is not so much a horrible dream because of its horrible content, in fact, it is a horrible dream because the dream-work does not work and the truth about your wishes cannot be displaced and distorted anymore in order to keep sleeping (Freud, 1999, 578–592 and 688). Finally, this truth came through and made me wake up from somnambulism – it showed its naked face to the conscious mind, sometime around 2001: I had wanted to believe the “illusio” to stay inside the field, I had desperately embodied the role of the wannabe to stay inside, at any price – be it social self-disdain, be it economical and symbolic self-exploitation.
Waking up caused a severe epistemic and social “break” with the realm of design. The years before I had been back and forth in the process of awareness building about the “illusio” of the design scene, but once I allowed myself to see and reflect it, the whole design scene was definitely disenchanted. The universality of good taste became a double-quoted “universality“, modernist reductionism became only “so to speak modest“, sustainable design “pseudo long-lived“ and so on, but most important: the absolute rule of talent as the only legitimate means for success became a very relative and arbitrary rule. In other words, my new sobriety opened the view to highly distinctive, but seemingly invisible class-bound practices and class-bound judgements inside the design field.
This sober gaze was first a shock and became only fruitful with the further steps I took: my studies in economic and social history and art history at the University of Zurich and my dissertation supported by the ETH Zurich. When talking to the designers that are still in the field I am very much aware that my outside position is a now privileged one. Due to my distance as a scholar and to my sense for the special sound of the former worker’s dreams and nightmares inside the design field, I can crystalize class limits that insiders often cannot, even if they wanted. I am confronted with reflexion as well as with the limits of reflexion in the interviews, limits that may seem individually motivated. When considering the existential threat that a disenchanted awareness of the game can be for these agents, I see the limits of speech as manifestations of the narrow limits of open debates about class boundaries inside the field. Thus, I would follow Pierre Bourdieu who says that the practical, physical sense for social borders lends itself to the oblivion of limits (Bourdieu 2010, and 1987, 734). He is pointing out the fact that worker’s children eliminate themselves from highly skilled professions, because they don’t even think that these professions could be suitable for them. All my interviewees talk about the time it took them to overcome this inner gap. Numbers and statistics clearly show the quantitative surface of this habitual self-limitation in Zurich’s design field (Seefranz and Saner 2012; Saner, Vögele, and Vessely 2016). But what happens when you succeed in trespassing the line, despite of everything?

Disappearing behind the middle class mask
The practical sense of one’s place in society makes it seem quite natural that a working class child would not become a designer, like a cat, quite naturally, would not want to swim. So, once you made it nevertheless, things get very tricky. The practical, physical sense for social borders lends itself to the oblivion of limits – but only as long as you stay within the milieus of the working class and reproduce the status of your milieu in your own path. Trespassing the lines therefore means two things. First, that the oblivion is suddenly toothless and you start feeling the limitations offhand, struggling with an unknown sense of morbid strangeness. Second, that you experience the annihilating power of a middle class normativity: you do feel clearly out of place but realize that this out-placed position of yours, in the mind of everybody else accessing the field, does not exist. What does not exist cannot be recognised. This lack of recognition is the external contribution that completes the overall oblivion that trespassers overcome involuntarily. The lack of recognition from inside the field is another interesting thing. Here, once again, one could think that it is a personal attitude of some individuals that are just intellectually too lazy or not emphatic enough. Again, I rather suggest that it is a manifest articulation of the narrow limits of open debates about class boundaries, one coming from inside the field. By reading these articulations against the grain, the objective limits can be named and crystalized. Actually, a chapter of my dissertation is dedicated to the limitations in understanding my research by those who cannot possibly see the middle class normativity from within, like a fish cannot possibly feel the water, or: their own naturalized “middle class habitus” within a “middle class field”.
The denial of the existence of class boundaries inside the design field leads to a complex situation: an embedded loneliness of the “space intruders”, as Sara Ahmed calls social trespassers of all kinds (Ahmed, 2004). What is striking in all my interviews, is the fact that the interviewees are, simultaneously, completely fascinated by the “illusio” of the field, as much as they are forced to experience a “rupture” or “break” with the “illusio” that nobody else must. All of them use at some point the metaphor of a “dry sponge absorbing water” of the design world. And all of them tell me about their isolation, sometimes using positive visualizations such as “floating island”, “martian”, “hermit” or a James Bond-like “secret agent”, sometimes recurring to rather violent connotations such as “prisoner” or “hostage”. In their pronounced isolation it becomes clear that the working class intruders into Zurich’s design field cannot recognize so easily who is also wearing a middle class mask. This isolation is a hardship that some of my interviewees are even able to enjoy, but it is not the only hardship. On top of that lie discriminatory practices and humiliating judgments about their families and peers. The middle class mask is therefore a most ambivalent one: it makes it possible to resist discrimination alone by adopting a middle class “habitus”, but this implies the indignity of your working class self, and the impossibility to be recognized by others and unite in a common struggle against class discriminatory practices.

What a limitation is, after all
In my workshop I opened the reflexive space for discussions about class in design cultures. We did so by listening to the sound of sociological and historical “ruptures” I extracted from my interview transcripts. The examples were always related to very specific, visual and material objects of the Zurich design scene that I cannot display here. It was a great opportunity for me to explain the quality of inequality in Zurich to an international audience and to work with the participants through the oral surface of the quotes, trying to objectify the specificity of the empirical material.
How is it then that designers and social upward movers deconstruct the normativity of aesthetic categories today? I ask back – deriving the leitmotifs from the rich quotes provided by the interviewees, from their stream of unconscious and conscious social critique, from their attitude of rejection and approval of the design world – with the following questionnaire:
• At what point is the postulation for so called “good taste” opening a forum for debates, and when is it – on the contrary – “an aesthetic euphemism for social arrogance“?
• At what point is so called “talent” honored as an aesthetic potential for social revision, and when – on the contrary – is the ritualized regress to talent “an excuse for social reproduction through the similarity between the well-established and the newcomers“?
• At what point are so called “social media” really social in distributing cultural capital, and when – on the contrary – are social media “making a difference that gets bigger and bigger in a very attractive way“?
• At what point is so called “reductionism” a tool for democratic design, and when – on the contrary – “a modernist mannerism completely detached from its economical implication”?
• At what point is so called “inspiration drawn from the working class milieus” an economic acknowledgement of the creativity of the unskilled, and when – on the contrary – is it “a re-edition of slumming practices from Victorian age“?
• At what point is so called “sustainability” a value that works also for the poorest, and when – on the contrary – “an escapist and neurotic cocooning of the worried wealthy with no political grip“?
• At what point is so called “postmodernist irony” a true chance to evade paternalism in aesthetics, and when – on the contrary – “an aesthetically controlled joke at the cost of the underprivileged“?
• At what point does the so called “academization” of design schools help our students to reflect the diverse hierarchies within the design world, and when – on the contrary – is it an „intimidating curricular set of bourgeois attitudes“?
This provisional, incomplete questionnaire is here to consider what an invisible social limit is, after all: a very fine addition of very fine points that the struggle for a better life, at the end of the day, sums up to a great divergence. Further, and inspired by James Baldwin’s opening quotation, I would say that these points in my context are “choices one has got to make, for ever and ever and ever, every day“. Behind these choices lies the “terrible reality”, which is the true cost of what you believe to be real. No wonder Baldwin, in another essay uses quotes when asking: “Who can afford to ‘improvise’, at these prices?” (Baldwin 2010, 41 and 121). I echo this quote by asking who can afford to be “creative” at these prices – in Zurich and elsewhere?
As teachers, supervisors and mentors of the future generations of working class students in design, and as curators, critics, historians and sociologists of design, we should keep in mind the specific hardship of all upward movers into the field. The structure of my questionnaire, far more than its historically contingent content, therefore, is a concrete proposal of an epistemic tool for the gate-keepers and the door-openers of the field. We can use it to recalibrate our practices and judgements when it comes to class in design culture.

References
Opening Quotation
Baldwin, James. 2010. The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity, in: The Cross of Redemption. Uncollected Writings, New York/Toronto: Pantheon Books, p. 41.

Bibliography
Ahmed, Sara. 2004. Space Invaders. Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Space. Oxford/New York: Berg.
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Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010. Distinction. A social critique on the judgement of taste, transl. by Richard Nice, with a new introduction by Tony Bennett, London: Routledge Classics.
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Lazzarato, Maurizio. 1996. Immaterial Labour, in: Virno, Paolo, Michael Hardt, Radical Thought in Italy. A Potential Politics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, pp. 133–147.
Saner, Philippe, Sophie Vögele, and Pauline Vessely. 2016. Schlussbericht Art.School.Differences. Researching Inequalities and Normativities in the Field of Higher Art Education. Zurich: Institute for Art Education, online: https://blog.zhdk.ch/artschooldifferences/schlussbericht/ (last access: 17.10.2017).
Seefranz, Catrin, and Philippe Saner. 2012. Making Differences: Schweizer Kunsthochschulen. Explorative Vorstudie. Zurich: Institute for Art Education, online: https://blog.zhdk.ch/artschooldifferences/files/2013/11/Making_Differences_Vorstudie_Endversion.pdf (last access: 17.10.2017).
Stamm, Margrit. 2016. Arbeiterkinder an die Hochschulen! Hintergründe ihrer Aufstiegsangst, Dossier 16/2. Fribourg: Swiss Education, online: margritstamm.ch/images/Arbeiterkinder%20an%20die%20Hochschulen!.pdf (last access: 17.10.2017).

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Ankündigung Workshop In- und Exklusion Feb. 2018

Im Rahmen der WINTER SCHOOL 2018 bietet Sophie Vögele zusammen mit Nina Mühlemann den Workshop: Auswirkungen von In- und Exklusion verstehen an.

Workshopbeschreibung
Institutionen reproduzieren soziale Ungleichheiten. Davon sind auch Kunst- und Kulturbetrieb nicht ausgenommen. Insbesondere Migrationserfahrung, Klassen-Zugehörigkeit und der non-konforme Körper wirken sich ausschliessend aus. In Verbindung mit der Bevorzugung von Menschen die der anerkannten Norm entsprechen, entsteht Diskriminierung. Diese Erkenntnis zu institutioneller Normierung und ihre Auswirkungen sind für Kulturinstitutionen relevant, bspw. in Bezug auf gesellschaftlichen Auftrag, Zielpublikum, Mitarbeitendenauswahl, inhaltliche Schwerpunktsetzung, etc. Nur wer sich dieser Prozesse bewusst ist, ihre Funktionsweise und gesellschaftliche Verankerung versteht, kann gegensteuern.
Die Teilnehmenden erlernen und erproben Kenntnisse und Fähigkeiten zur Beurteilung der Auswirkungen von Exklusion. Sie verstehen die Wirkmächtigkeit vorherrschender Normen, nehmen die Wirkungsweisen ein- und ausschliessender institutioneller Strukturen wahr und können diese für die eigene Praxis fruchtbar machen.

Daten und Zeiten
Fr, 2. Februar, 14.00 –17.30 Uhr
So, 4. Februar, 09.30 –13.00 und 14.00 –17.30 Uhr
Mi, 7. Februar, 18.30 – 22.00 Uhr
Do, 8. Februar, 14.00 –17.30 Uhr

Anmeldeformular
BrochüreWinterschool 2018

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Aufschaltung neue Webseite: Schweizer Netzwerk für Diskriminierungsforschung

Neue WEBSEITE des SNDF/RSRD. Hier sind Informationen zur Diskriminierungsforschung in der Schweiz versammelt.
Das SNDF bringt Forschende aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen in Kontakt, welche in der Schweiz zu Diskriminierung arbeiten. Ziele des Netzwerks sind:
– die Förderung des interdisziplinären Austausches zur Diskriminierungsforschung,
– das Entwickeln von Forschungsprojekten,
– die Organisation von Kongressen und Workshops, und
– das Verbreiten von Informationen zu Forschungsprojekten in der Schweiz.

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Are You Good Enough? The Notion of «Good Design»

THE NOTION OF «Good Design» AND ITS ROLE IN DESIGN EDUCATION
Sarah Owens

The workshop «Are You Good Enough?», held at the final Art.School.Differences Symposium (for the workshop description see PARCOURS) in November 2016, intended to galvanise questions and preliminary insights that emerged during co-research in the field of graphic design education. This research was based on the premise that the term «good design» has recently made a comeback and is becoming increasingly evident in design discourse. Good design – and by extension, the good designer – are said to possess certain characteristics that are used to explain a very diverse set of aspects ranging from aesthetic qualities to market success. The good designer is true to form, to content, and to herself or himself. Historically, the idea of good design is likely rooted in the notion of «good form», which brought with it connotations of universalism and the assumption that there is a right solution to every problem. In the more recent guise of social design, good design suggests that even economic, social and political problems may be solved through design.
The workshop was centred around an installation of books and posters highlighting statements that allude to «goodness» within the graphic design discourse, either as a marker of quality of work, of morality and behaviour, or of social engagement. It identified problematic narratives that repeatedly form the basis of life stories or anecdotes about graphic designers, condensed in types such as the «Rebel» (a designer who breaks all the rules), the «Tomboy» (a woman who becomes successful by being «one of the boys») or the «Pioneer» (a designer who «conquers» new graphic design «territory»). It also considered how graphic designers in various time periods were portrayed by others or how they portrayed themselves – for instance Peter Saville, who stated: «Graphic Design was where I wanted to belong. I wanted to be cool», in effect rendering graphic design a desirable lifestyle in which aloofness and non-mainstream savviness can contribute to being considered competent. Remarkable are also those instances in which specific personality traits are ascribed to those who are seen as good designers, as in this statement by Hans Wichmann about the Swiss designer Armin Hofmann: «His quality as a designer and teacher stems from that rare combination of deep understanding of formative aesthetic values, [and] uncompromising honesty, patience, kindness.»
Whenever a field lacks strong counter-narratives that are able to provide alternative descriptions and explanations, statements such as the above consolidate normative assumptions. In graphic design, they are able to influence ideas about who can be considered qualified or skilled, about what constitutes relevant or outstanding design, as well as impacting on notions of how design students should be educated. Such statements may become imperatives, in that they set tight boundaries as to what can be considered appropriate behaviour. They also provide a comfortable basis for categorisation and judgement as long as they remain undisputed.
A particular focus within the installation lay on the way in which the graphic design curriculum normalises certain attitudes, values and beliefs. Quotes from books on design education were juxtaposed with statements from students who reflected on entering a field that sets questionable conditions («It seems the ideal graphic design student is one who is extraordinarily ambitious, hard-working and single-minded in the sense that she or he lives for design») and positions that surface on the part of educators in situations of appraisal, for example in admissions exams («The ideal graphic design student is a blank slate, and is ready to be shaped by design education»). The resulting dialogue illustrated how graphic design students grapple with the expectations of conformance directed towards them, and revealed the pervasive (and obviously persuasive) nature of normative messages within educational settings.
The workshop aimed to leave its attendees with more questions than answers. The lively discussion surrounding the presented statements furthermore indicated that there are numerous issues demanding a more in-depth inquiry. Such inquiry can provide design educators with a basis for re-evaluating criteria and assumptions concerning good design, and hopefully will inspire graphic design history and theory to recognise alternative voices and knowledge.

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Zine Art Related Feminist Practices

ART RELATED FEMINIST PRACTICES COLOURING SHEETS.
Artists at Work from Talk to Action. How to Deviate from Normativities?
Maëlle Cornut, Marie-Antoinette Chiarenza

ZINE

The ART RELATED FEMINIST PRACTICES COLOURING SHEETS resulted out of the Workshop offered at the Symposium (see PARCOURS for the workshop description). It re-staged a work situation in a fictional studio inspired by the studios of existing artists. A fifteen-minute document was played twice; the first time, as an audio file and the second time as a video file to enable a multi-layered understanding of a specific topic. Using this approach, questions such as: what are the references that we are using? How do artists research a specific issue? And what do we bring from the brain to the hands and vice versa? were collectively addressed.

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Was stellt Mentoring im Kunstunterricht her?

WORKSHOP KO-FORSCHUNG «Mentoring and Practices of Collective Supervision», FINAL SYMPOSIUM 2016
Romy Rüegger, Yvonne Wilhelm

Der Orgelsaal ist beeindruckend. Schwarze Designbäuche stülpen sich aus den Wänden, daran sollen sich jetzt die Tonwellen brechen, so dass man die Höhen und Tiefen ausgewogen hört. Klar hört. Die Orgel steht auf einer Erhöhung, neben ihr ein Konzertflügel. Stühle stehen keine mehr im tiefer gelegenen Publikumsraum, ich habe sie für den Workshop (siehe die Workshop-Beschreibung unter PARCOURS) weggestellt. Ich setze mich in diesem Zuhörerbereich auf den Boden. Ohne viel zu tun, ist mein Körper dabei in einer räumlichen Umkehrung. Die Workshopteilnehmerinnen setzen sich auf das Plateau, auf dem die Orgel steht. Die Workshopbesucherinnen schauen auf mich hinunter, sie sind die Akteurinnen, die auf der Bühne sitzen. Ich frage sie nach ihren Erfahrungen mit Mentoring, was sie damit verbinden und nach ihren Erfahrungen. Einige der Workshopteilnehmerinnen unterrichten an Universitäten oder Kunsthochschulen, einige arbeiten für NGOs oder in anderen an Bildung interessierten Institutionen. Erstaunlich oft wird Mentoring als Förderprogramm für Frauen am Anfang ihrer Berufstätigkeit genannt. Ich erinnere mich selbst, eine Einladung zu einem solchen Programm bekommen zu haben. Ich teile leuchtende Blätter aus, die ich zuvor im Assistenzraum gefunden habe, ohne zu sagen, was damit geschehen soll. Wer weiss, vielleicht möchte sich jemand Notizen machen?
Zusammen mit Yvonne Wilhelm haben wir versucht herauszufinden, wie wir ein geschlossenes Unterrichtsformat, wie das Mentoratsgespräch in der Ausbildung von Künstlerinnen untersuchen können (siehe dazu auch Ko-Forschung). Ein Freund von mir macht seine Mentoratsgespräche zum Beispiel immer so, dass sie in einer offenen Unterrichtssituation stattfinden. Die Studierenden lesen einen Text oder arbeiten etwas am Laptop, während er mit jeweils einer Studierenden den Stand ihrer Arbeit bespricht. Die Mentoratsgespräche im Bachelor Medien und im Master Fine Arts an der ZHdK finden ohne Zuhörerinnen statt: es ist ein Gespräch zwischen Dozierender oder Assistierender und einer Studierenden. Als Unterrichtssituation ist es ein Format, der ein Safe Space sein könnte. Ich habe diese Situationen als Studierende aber oft als sehr verwirrend und überladen von unausgesprochener struktureller Macht erlebt. Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts haben wir danach gefragt, welches Vorwissen über dieses Format die Studierenden mitbringen sollten, so dass dieses geschlossene Gesprächsformat die Entscheidungsfindungen, die über ihre Arbeiten darin stattfinden, für beide Seiten nachvollziehbar sind.
Oder ist das Mentoratsgespräch eher ein Bewerbungsgespräch? Haben die Masterstudierenden, die an unserer Ko-Forschung mitgearbeitet haben gefragt. In ihrem Fall, findet die Mentorierung oft mit externen Dozierenden statt, die ausserhalb der Hochschule unter anderem Kuratorinnen, Jurymitglieder, Stiftungsbeiräte und Kritikerinnen sind. Protagonistinnen im Kunstfeld also, die darüber mitentscheiden, welche künstlerische Arbeit gefördert, gezeigt, beschrieben und kursiert wird. Und warum spricht man mit den Studierenden, die nicht so gut Deutsch sprechen, automatisch Englisch, hat eine der Bachelorstudierenden gefragt, die mit uns an dieser Ko-Forschung gearbeitet haben. Überall sind sie, die Identitätsmarker und Zuschreibungen: kommst du nicht aus dem Deutschsprachigen Raum, kommst du bestimmt aus einer privilegierten Schicht und sprichst entsprechend Englisch. Das ist die Feststellung, die sie so mit uns geteilt hat.
Stärker noch als in anderen Unterrichtsformaten, kommen vorgefestigte Rollenbilder und damit verbundene Erwartungen aller am Mentoratsgespräch beteiligten zum tragen. Rollenbilder vom Künstler, vom jungen Künstler, vom werdenden Künstler. Ja genau, es kann auch eine Künstlerin* sein. Ein Kanon (leider weiterhin ein meist westlich männlich modernistischer) wird abgerufen, implizit oder explizit auf die entstehende Arbeit angewendet. Diese und weitere Beobachtungen konnten wir anhand der Textbesprechungen, des von Art.School.Differences eigens für die Ko-Forschenden zusammengestellten Reader, der Vorträge und den gemeinsamen Austauschtreffen mit anderen Ko-Forschenden genau beschreiben, verorten und teilen.
Zusammen mit Yvonne Wilhelm haben wir im Verlauf unserer Forschung ein Diagramm gezeichnet, in dem man sehen kann, welche räumlichen, körperlichen, sprachlichen, kulturellen und performativen Faktoren beim Mentoratsgespräch zum Tragen kommen. Anhand dieser Faktoren haben wir die Notizen zu den geführten Gesprächen mit unterschiedlichen Farben markiert und konnten so sehen, was die Gewichtungen innerhalb des Gesprächs waren und hatten ein visuelles Mittel gefunden, mit dem wir unsere Recherche auch nach aussen tragen konnten.
Ich erzähle im Workshop auch von meinen aktuellen Erfahrungen mit Versuchen die grundsätzlichen räumlichen Voraussetzungen der Mentoratsgespräche zu ändern.
Und von einer weiterhin wachsenden Sammlung an Materialien zu feministischen und dekolonialisierenden Unterrichtsformen, die Yvonne Wilhelm und ich zusammen anlegen, auch über das Forschungsprojekt hinaus. „Bald sollten wir noch einmal ein Diagramm zeichnen und Differenzen abgleichen“ schlägt Yvonne als Kommentar auf diesen Workshopbericht vor. Die Ko-Forschung geht auf jeden Fall weiter.

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Eigener Ausdruck in Kunst und Unterricht

VAGE VORSTELLUNG VOM EIGENEN AUSDRUCK IN KUNST UND UNTERRICHT
Lorenz Bachofner, Laura Ferrara, Julia Kuster & Nora Schiedt

Nach einer intensiven Zeit als Ko-Forschende, sind wir das erste mal während des Symposiums (siehe insbesondere PARCOURS) an eine breitere Öffentlichkeit getreten. So „vage“ der „eigene Ausdruck“ in Lehrplänen definiert wird, so „vage“ war er selbst für uns. So haben wir uns entschieden, die Besucher*innen mit denselben Fragen zu konfrontieren, mit denen wir uns täglich bei unserer Arbeit als Lehrpersonen für Bildnerisches Gestalten an Gymnasien auseinandersetzen.
In einem ersten Schritt haben wir uns in der aktuellen Bildungslandschaft verortet, um in einem weiteren Schritt einen Einblick in unsere Forschungsfrage zu geben. Anschliessend haben wir an konkreten Beispielen versucht im Gespräch mit den Besucher*innen aufzuzeigen, in welchem Dilemma wir uns mit dem Begriff „eigener Ausdruck“ befinden. Das „Eigne“, „eigene Bildsprache“, „eigenständige Lösungsansätze“ und damit sind alle Synonyme gleichermassen gemeint. Der „eigene Ausdruck“ findet sich in diversen Lehrplänen an unterschiedlichen Kantonsschulen im Kanton Zürich. Und was bedeutet die Hochhaltung dieses Begriffs im Hinblick auf Ausgrenzung? Und was bedeutet es, konkret an einem Schüler*innenbeispiel das „Eigene“ zu suchen, zu finden oder eben nicht? Wir haben gemeinsam mit den Besucher*innen Hefter, die von Schüler*innen geführt wurden analysiert und ausgewertet. Im Gespräch sind wir auf unterschiedliche Interpretationen und damit auch auf das Dilemma gestossen, welches sich mit der Beurteilung des Begriffs „eigener Ausdruck“ zeigt. Wo hat eine Schüler*in von anderen Schüler*innen kopiert, wo ist es ein Zeichen der Sozialisierung, wo ein Ausdruck des Alters? Was ist „das Eigene“?
Die Diskussionen waren spannend. Wir hatten durch die Wiederholung des Workshops, die Möglichkeit beim zweiten Durchgang unsere Fragen zu präzisieren und gezielter nachzuhaken. Der Workshop war insofern sehr spannend, als dass wir sehr heterogene Gruppen hatten. Sie setzten sich aus Menschen aus diversen Berufsfeldern zusammen. Es wurden Fragen gestellt und Bemerkungen gemacht, die nicht aus dem uns angestammten Berufsfeld kamen und so konnten wir das „Eigene“ noch einmal auf ganz unterschiedliche Arten analysieren.
Mit dem Symposium ging eine angeregte Zeit mit vielen spannenden Menschen, Lektüren und Workshops zu Ende. Wir sind gespannt, wie sich unsere und andere Fragen und Anliegen weiterhin verfolgen und jede Form der Exklusion hinterfragen lassen.

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

WdKA makes a Difference Reader 2017

Research Project WdKA makes a Difference

WdK A makes a Difference is an action based research project interested in the possibilities of decolonial approaches within the Willem de Kooning Academy, which was conducted from
January 2015 till December 2016.

Principle investigator: Nana Adusei-Poku
Co-researchers: Teana Boston-Mammah, Jan van Heemst
Contributors: Marleen van Arendonk, Rudi Enny, Esma Moukhtar, Mark Mulder, Remko van de Pluijm, Reinaart Vanhoe

WdKA makes a Difference READER 2017
WdK makes a Difference WEBSITE

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Netzwerktagung Aktionsforschung 4: Any Generation

Art—Education Netzwerk Woche 16.01.17—20.01.17
Aktionsforschung entstanden in der Auseinandersetzung mit institutioneller Normativität im Rahmen des Workshops Inklusion.Exklusion.Künste von Sophie Vögele.

ANY GENERATION: DIE ANTISTUDIERENDEN
Monika Gschwentner, Laila Yacoub

Im Rahmen der Art Education Netzwerkwoche an der HGK Basel beschäftigten wir uns im Workshop «Inklusion.Exklusion.Künste» mit sozialen Ungleichheiten, welche an schweizerischen Kunsthochschulen anzutreffen sind.
Basierend auf den uns vorgestellten Forschungsergebnissen von «Art.School.Differences» sowie unseren eigenen Erfahrungen von Ausschluss und Diskriminierung, welche wir im Hochschulkontext erlebten und beobachteten, führten wir eine eigene, kleine Aktionsforschung durch.
Mit der Fragestellung, welche Zielgruppe die HGK durch Printmedien anvisieren und wer dabei systematisch ausgeschlossen wird, analysierten wir Flyer und Broschüren der HGK Basel – insbes. die Serie «NEXT GENERATION» – und befragten das Kommunikationsbüro.
(mehr …)

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Netzwerktagung Aktionsforschung 3: Inklusion über Identifikation

Art—Education Netzwerk Woche 16.01.17—20.01.17

Aktionsforschung entstanden in der Auseinandersetzung mit institutioneller Normativität im Rahmen des Workshops Inklusion.Exklusion.Künste von Sophie Vögele.

INKLUSION ÜBER IDENTIFIKATION
Stefanie Bühler, Carina Sommer, Paula Weimann

ZIEL: INKLUSION!

Na, wie steht’s?
Worum geht’s?
Was bieten Hochschulen an?
Wer kommt an Infos ran?
Was passiert? Was wird gesagt?
Was scheint niemals hinterfragt?
Was ist gegeben?
Wo merkt man ein Bestreben?
Wie wurde gehandelt?
Was wurde gewandelt?
Wo besteht Potential?
Wem ist’s nicht egal?
–
–
–

Weitere Aktionsforschungen im Rahmen der Netzwerkwoche 2017 in Basel
Aktionsforschung 1: Bildersprache Web Kunsthochschule
Aktionsforschung 2: Zur Homogenität von Studierenden
Aktionsforschung 4: Any Generation: Die Antistudierenden

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Netzwerktagung Aktionsforschung 2: Zur Homogenität von Studierenden

Art—Education Netzwerk Woche 16.01.17—20.01.17

Aktionsforschung entstanden in der Auseinandersetzung mit institutioneller Normativität im Rahmen des Workshops Inklusion.Exklusion.Künste von Sophie Vögele.

AKTIONSFORSCHUNG ZUR HOMOGENITÄT DER TEILNEHMENDEN DER NETZWERKWOCHE
Joel Vuille

Weitere Aktionsforschungen im Rahmen der Netzwerkwoche 2017 in Basel
Aktionsforschung 1: Bildersprache Web Kunsthochschule
Aktionsforschung 3: Inklusion über Identifikation
Aktionsforschung 4: Any Generation: Die Antistudierenden

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Netzwerktagung Aktionsforschung 1: Bildersprache Web Kunsthochschule

Art—Education Netzwerk Woche 16.01.17—20.01.17

Aktionsforschung entstanden in der Auseinandersetzung mit institutioneller Normativität im Rahmen des Workshops Inklusion.Exklusion.Künste von Sophie Vögele.

FINDE DAS PASSENDE INSTITUT
Misha Andris, Dario Benigno, Caroline Faust, Andreas Zybach

Die FHNW resp. HGK Homepage wurde auf folgendes Untersucht:
– was wird anhand der Bilder vermittelt?
– wie ist die kulturelle Vielfalt auf den Bildern?
– wie ist das Verhältnis von Frauen und Männern auf den Bildern?
– wie steht es um den Ableismus? Gibt es Menschen mit Handicaps zu sehen?
– welches Image vermittelt das jeweilige Institut?

Anhand dieser Untersuchung entstand für jedes Institut ein Profil, das humorvoll die
Untersuchungsresultate zusammenfasst.

Weitere Aktionsforschungen im Rahmen der Netzwerkwoche 2017 in Basel
Aktionsforschung 2: Zur Homogenität von Studierenden
Aktionsforschung 3: Inklusion über Identifikation
Aktionsforschung 4: Any Generation: Die Antistudierenden

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Art—Education Netzwerk Woche Jan. 2017

Art—Education Netzwerk Woche 16.01.17—20.01.17 «(Künstlerische) Bildung im Kontext von Migration», Institut Lehrberufe Gestaltung und Kunst an der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW, Basel. Flyer

Workshop von Sophie Vögele: INKLUSION.EXKLUSION.KÜNSTE

Beschreibung des Workshops: Seit einiger Zeit wird in verschiedenen Forschungen deutlich, dass im Bereich der künstlerischen Hochschulbildung soziale Ungleichheiten reproduziert werden. Insbesondere Migrationserfahrung und Klassen-Zugehörigkeit wirken sich ausschliessend – also exkludierend – aus. Dabei zeigt sich, dass letztlich die Bevorzugung – also Inklusion – bestimmter Menschen die der Norm entsprechen, einen diskriminierenden Effekt hat.
In diesem Workshop gehen wir anhand der Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojekts Art.School.Differences spezifischen Formen der Inklusion und Exklusion nach. Wir stecken das Spannungsfeld einer institutionellen Normierung der Kunsthochschule ab um die verschiedenen Veranderungs-Prozesse (Othering) und spezifisch den Ausschluss von Migrant_innen anzuschauen. Dabei eignen sich Teilnehmende Analysetools in Bezug auf soziale Ungleichheit im Bildungskontext an. Es geht darum, die Kunsthochschule als Herrschaftsraum zu begreifen und Ansatzpunkte zur Veränderung zu eruieren sowie die eigene professionelle Rolle und Verantwortung in dieser Konstellation zu befragen. Neben der Präsentation ausgewählter Resultate der Forschung sowie der Ko-Forschung wie auch deren gemeinsamer Lektüre führen Teilnehmende selbst eine partizipative Aktionsforschung durch.

AKTIONSFORSCHUNGEN AUS DEM WORKSHOP
Aktionsforschung 1: Bildersprache Web Kunsthochschule
Aktionsforschung 2: Zur Homogenität von Studierenden
Aktionsforschung 3: Inklusion über Identifikation
Aktionsforschung 4: Any Generation: Die Antistudierenden

SCHLAGWORTE AUS DEM WORKSHOP
Demokratisierung der Institution = partizipative Prozesse, kritische Hinterfragung von Machtverhältnissen, Gleichberechtigter Austausch zwischen dem Globalen Süden und dem Globalen Norden
Herausforderungen
• INSTITUTIONELLES WEISSEIN, das kontinuierlich erhalten und neu hergestellt wird = Unterrepräsentation von Menschen mit Migratonserfahrung an den Kunsthochschulen
• INSTITUTIONELLE NORMATIVITÄT die kontinuierlich erhalten und neu hergestellt wird = Privilegierung von Studierenden und Mitarbeitenden aus höher gestellten sozialen Schichten, die als Normschweizerisch oder globale Wanderer klassifiziert werden können, normierte junge und fitte Körper haben
• INTERSEKTIONALE WIRKUNG von Inklusion & Exklusion
• INSTITUTIONALISIERTE PROZESSE VON RASSISMUS, SEXISMUS, KLASSISMUS UND ABLEISMUS
• ANHALTENDE PROZESSE VON OTHERING
• IGNORANZ EIGENER PRIVILEGIEN; bzw. auf eigene Privilegien nicht verzichten zu wollen

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Swiss Art School Jungle

How to Survive in the Swiss Art School Jungle?
The daily micro-practices of discrimination of international students at art schools
by Coko Nuts Collective (represented by Daniel Zea, Hyunji Lee, & Andrea Nucamendi)

Inspired by several activist artists and collectives, as well as other art projects, the Coko Nuts collective uses real-life testimonies and a lot of humour to address inequities within art institutions and society in general. Coko Nuts questions, what are successful strategies by non-European students to deal with inequities encountered at their schools? How can these strategies be depicted in art projects? And how can a more equitable treatment of non-European students lead to a more successful internationalisation of Swiss art schools? They present a series of video interviews with foreign students who have faced exclusion, in one way or another, during their student life in Geneva’s Art Schools (HEAD – Genève & HEM Genève – Neuchâtel) in order to provide some answers and raise new questions (see also CO-RESEARCH).

During the final symposium’s PARCOURS the testimonies were shown in the Toni Kino and a VIDEO BOOTH INSTALLATION allowed people to share their own videos with the Coko Nuts Collective.
Have you experienced any exclusion or marginalization due to your diversity?

Dienstag, 31UTC%3 31. Oktober 2017

Art.School.Differences final report and statements

Der Schlussbericht Art.School.Differences, die Stellungnahmen der Partner-Hochschulen und die Meta-Stellungnahme des Internationalen Beirates sind unter Schlussbericht und Stellungnahmen abrufbar.
Das Kapitel 9 fasst die Schlussfolgerungen zusammen, das Kapitel 10 beinhaltet die identifizierten Handlunsgfelder für eine inlusivere Kunsthochschule.

Dienstag, 06UTC%3 6. Dezember 2016

Disability inclusion

REPORT ON THE FINAL ART.SCHOOL.DIFFERENCES SYMPOSIUM by Nina Mühlemann*

I attended the Symposium ‘Because it’s 2016! Challenging inclusion and exclusion at Swiss art schools’ as someone with a strong interest both in the performing arts and in disability inclusion. Growing up as a wheelchair user in Zurich and studying English and German literature in Basel, a critical analysis of disability or its representation was never part of the curriculum alongside gender, race or sexuality, even though I longed for theoretical frameworks that included disability. Once I discovered Disability Studies and realised that this was an emerging field in the UK and the USA, I decided to pursue a Master’s degree in the UK. Currently I am writing my doctoral thesis at King’s College London about the vibrancy of disability arts in the UK. When I arrived to do my master’s degree in London in 2010, I was amazed and delighted to discover the high professional standard of disabled artists in the UK in all art fields. Often, this work gives profound insight into different ways of being in the world and how we, as a society, value them.

I was very curious to hear at the Symposium what the situation is like in Switzerland for young disabled people who are keen to become professional artists. Where do Swiss art schools stand at the moment when it comes to inclusion? What are the barriers, and how can they be removed? What kind of insight can experts give who have been working in the field or art school inclusions all over the world? What can we learn from their experiences? This report will be written from a perspective that focuses on how disability was addressed during the Symposium, and I will attempt to insert disability into some of the questions or issues that were raised during those two days.

The day at ZHdK started off with Sophie Vögele, Philippe Saner, Pauline Vessely and Carmen Mörsch presenting their research on social differences in the admission process at Swiss art schools. The participating schools were the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), the Haute école d’art et de design – Genève (HEAD – Genève) and the Haute école de musique Genève – Neuchâtel (HEM).
The researchers took a report from the UK as a starting point, Jackie McManus’ study ‘Art for a Few’, which stated that art schools are for the privileged, people who are white and middle-class. The researchers were then interested to find out how art schools in Switzerland recruit, evaluate and select their candidates – what is the ‘ideal student’ in this process, and furthermore, how do students cope with the idea of this ‘ideal student’? Are there any mechanisms that effect the exclusion of very specific social groups? In their results, they found, for example, that more and more students of artistic disciplines have at least one parent with a university degree and come from culturally privileged families.

When it came to presenting fields of tensions within the selection process at art schools, the group stated that the criteria this process is based on is often very vague, which in theory could open up a space for the unexpected, for students who are ‘other’ – yet, this was not what the researchers found, on the contrary, a normative identity seems to remain a requirement.

When it comes to disability, in particular, one finding was difficult to swallow: During the open days at ZHdK for the degrees in theatre and dance, it has been stated very openly by the art school that a normative physicality and mental wellbeing is a requirement for admission. This requirement is stated publicly, which perhaps shows that discrimination of disabled people is still something that happens very openly in Switzerland. In other parts of the assessment it is also made clear that it is a requirement to be in full physical and mental health to be able to do this degree. Why is this still acceptable? The title of the evening was after all ‘Because it’s 2016!’, and that such open discrimination in 2016 is still possible made me feel furious. It also made me feel extremely grateful that this research project and the rigorous work of the researchers was there to uncover this discrimination, put it on the table and offer it up for discussion.

Many of the rigorous requirements in traditional arts training are tied to able-bodiedness – Can students practice day and night? Can they mould their bodies for their artform in a way that makes their identity disappear? Can they adapt themselves and their artwork to whatever ideal their teachers or the market demands from them? All forms of perceived difference that deviate from a fabricated normative ideal are seen automatically as lesser, as not good enough.
Not demanding compulsory able-bodiedness from students would mean to let them mould the artform so that it suits their bodies and competences, not the other way around. As disabled artists in the US and in the UK have shown repeatedly, opening up art forms – dance, theatre, visual arts, performance – to disabled bodies can enrich these art forms and release new creative possibilities. This does not mean that whole curricula have to be changed, but it does demand a more flexible approach towards assessing students’ competences and a willingness to imagine a potential that goes beyond the already familiar from teachers and admission officers. It requires a willingness of teachers to be taught by their students sometimes, too.

The researchers then gave us a little preview of the reader, which will be available from early 2017. It was created based on the findings of their research, and texts in English, German and French. The reader will have five volumes and one of them focuses on disability inclusion. The reader was created as a tool and resource for teaching, but also as a support for negotiations that happen within the sector of higher education.

After this first insight, we heard the first two keynotes, which were both fantastic. First on was Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, with a talk entitled ‘Creation, Participation, and the Political Life of Cultural Production’. It centred around the idea of cultural production, and how it can be used. Within this rhetoric, artistic forms are understood as processes, taking material conditions, cultural contexts and social circumstances into account. What cultural production is currently granted the status of ‘the arts’? Gaztambide-Fernández explored how particular conditions are needed to achieve this status, and he wondered whether it was possible for us, as a society, to relocate or resignify what we mean by the arts and to destabilise the hierarchy that often structures what is seen as arts and what is not.
Gaztambide-Fernández explained that traditionally, but also in a neoliberal context specifically, the arts are often framed as a substance or medicine that can be injected and has transformative qualities, as a tool to civilise citizens and especially young people. As a result, what we understand as ‘the arts’ becomes trapped by its own rhetoric, being seen as something that maintains ‘European civilization’, or in other words, European cultural supremacy.
Although Gaztambide-Fernández did not mention this, the injection of arts as ‘medicine’ is highly visible within a disability context where art is often seen as a form of rehabilitation or therapy. While art of course can be therapeutic, in these contexts the produced art is often seen as of little value, simply because it was produced as a means of therapy.

The second keynote was by Nana Adusei-Poku, entitled ‘Everyone Has to Learn Everything!’. She was talking about her own experience as a researcher and teacher within higher education at Rotterdam University of Applied Science. She explained that while the general population of Rotterdam consists of 55% people of colour and 45% white people, she does not see this population reflected in her class rooms. Adusei-Poku introduced me to the concept of racial time with the example that up until some decades ago, books were first given to white schools and then handed down to black schools. This delay produced a knowledge gap. Currently, there is another knowledge gap produced by racial time at schools, as the core curriculum is always based on white history, while black history is deemed ‘elective’ and absent in the canon. Adusei-Poku sees her work as decolonising work and acknowledged that this work is uncomfortable as it is destabilizing hierarchies, and as such is often met with resistance.
Adusei-Poku further talked about her experience of caring for her white students as a black educator and the emotional labour that comes from discussing whiteness with white people. This kind of emotional work that educators take on themselves is extremely necessary and, at the same time, under-appreciated and devalued.
While Adusei-Poku voiced some frustrations about her role, as most often she can only reach those who are already willing to listen, her talk also showed how important it is for inclusion not only to happen on a student level, but also on a staff level, in order to provide an inclusive and stimulating environment to all students. To see some of the work Adusei-Poku has done and what she has achieved together with her students and allies was extremely inspiring and left me feeling very positive.

What followed after these two wonderful keynotes was somewhat disheartening and also a clear example of the resistance Adusei-Poku mentioned that her work towards inclusion is often met with.
It was now time for three directorate-members of the art schools participating in the study to respond to the findings of the report. Hartmut Wickert of ZHdK, Lysianne Léchot Hirt of HEAD – Genève and Xavier Bouvier of HEM Genève-Neuchatel started the discussion on a defiant note, with Bouvier stating that everything he was going to say would get deconstructed anyway as he was seen as ‘the voice of power’. Wickert expressed that he found the fields of action identified in the report disappointing and unsatisfying, as the school had to adhere to strict frameworks already given and that enacting change would be difficult. Léchot Hirt was prepared to claim more responsibility for the findings of the study in her answer, saying that results came as a shock to her as the institution considers itself as innovative, and the study proved a rigidity and a predictability of the institution that she did not realize was there.
In their responses, all three educators repeatedly brought up the marketplace and the standard the market expects from absolvents of art schools, suggesting implicitly that the market demands certain kinds of people, especially ones that are already privileged. Some statements also made it seem as if rigid policies implemented on a cantonal and national level made it next to impossible for the schools themselves to evoke change. The three educators also questioned the methodology of the study, which seemed to serve as a distraction to respond to the real issues the report had pointed out. As the discussion progressed it became clear that many in the audience, myself included, were dismayed by the reaction of the gatekeepers of these three institutions.
I appreciate the gatekeeper’s presence at the discussion, because this is not something that can be taken for granted, and it shows a readiness to listen. Léchot Hirt also stayed for most of the 2-day symposium, which shows a willingness to learn about the issues discussed and openness for change. I am also aware that there well may be instances where a lack of funding or rigidly imposed frameworks make it difficult for the schools to enact change. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, when it comes to disability there has been the case of such discouragement towards disabled students that has come from the ZHdK itself that I know there are profound misunderstandings and shortcomings which need to be addressed urgently.

In the discussion Wickert brought up DisAbility on Stage as an example where a step towards inclusion had already been taken, a research project at ZHdK which “aims to foster a discourse on dis/ability within Swiss Art Schools and universities by questioning models of dis/ability in theoretical reflection, performing practice and education. It brings together a unique team with members from national universities, art schools, dance and theater companies, and festivals, by including the three major Swiss language regions.” I am very excited about this project, but also dubious whether it is enough to readdress the systematic exclusions of disabled performers that have been happening for decades at Swiss art schools. DisAbility on Stage aims to bring disabled artists and art students together to foster understanding and collaboration, but it does not change the fact that disabled students are discouraged to apply to ZHdK.
I voiced this concern in the discussion and was told that the curricula of the art programmes at ZHdK could not be changed overnight and yet again that the art schools depend on applicants who the market has a demand for. Several people furiously spoke out against this response – as someone pointed out, justifying your exclusions and ableism with the fact that the same thing is happening on ‘the market’ is not good enough, especially as other countries such as the UK have shown that a) including disabled students does not require a complete change of the curricula and b) there is a market for disabled artists.

Once the discussion round was over I felt angry and disappointed, but also hopeful and, once again grateful for the people who did this research and organized this symposium to address the inequalities their research brought to light. A very energetic performance by Ntando Cele finished the day on a quite provocative note – Ntando slipped into different roles and the show encompassed a monologue chock-full of dark humour and punk songs performed live on stage, all the while addressing the systemic racism present in the art world, but also in Switzerland generally.

This full-on day left me quite exhausted for the 9am start on Saturday, but the two keynotes were once again fascinating: Cornelia Bartsch talked about the gendered and queer spaces she found in the music of Bach, and the music included in her presentation felt wonderfully soothing after the highly emotional experiences on the day before. Rena Onat and Bahareh Sharifi discussed the current situation in Germany, where a recent political decision to let refugees into the country was accompanied with funding of cultural education for those refugees, even though a further art school education is most of the time not a possibility for them. Furthermore, they brought in examples of artists in Germany and elsewhere who have experienced racism and used these experiences to think through structures of support.

After the two keynotes, there was a parcours where different rooms invited us to engage further with some of the questions and issues raised in the keynotes and presentations. While I enjoyed the two rooms I visited, I really needed the time to properly digest all the input from the two days, and more importantly, to connect with other people who attended the symposium. This was one of the most gratifying insights from the symposium: It opened up a room where alliances could be voiced and built. Fields that work with identity can sometimes be a little inward looking. In disability studies, we sometimes think about disability without taking other markers of difference or intersectionality into account when in reality, it can be so productive to look outwards, to share our insights and to listen to the insights of others.

In the afternoon, Melissa Steyn gave the final keynote about the important decolonizing work she has done within education in South Africa, and then Adusei-Poku, Jackie McManus, Olivier Moeschler, Ruth Sonderegger, Melissa Steyn and Ulf Wuggenig in their capacities as International Advisory Board members did a conference wrap-up. They highlighted again how important this work of the report is, and that the resistance that was shown towards it showed how necessary it was to get the ball rolling. I was very glad that I attended the symposium, even if it was upsetting for me to be confronted with the findings of the report. I left the symposium on a hopeful note, feeling inspired about all the fascinating research I heard about, especially as I think it will have an impact on the way I approach the classrooms I am teaching in. I am very excited for the readers to be published and hope that this research has been an important milestone which will evoke change at Swiss art schools and beyond.

*Nina Mühlemann is a doctoral student and Teaching Assistant at King’s College London at the Department for English Literature. Her focus is to analyse works of disabled artists and compare them to mainstream representations of disability. The title of her thesis is ‘Beyond the Superhuman: Performing Disability Arts Around London 2012’.

Dienstag, 06UTC%3 6. Dezember 2016

Art.School.Differences und die aesthetische Urteilskraft

BERICHT ZUM ART.SCHOOL.DIFFERENCES-ABSCHLUSSSYMPOSIUM ‚BECAUSE IT’S 2016‘ von Karin Hostettler*

Art.School.Differences verfolgte ein ambitioniertes Projekt: Im Zentrum stand die Studie, in deren Abschlussbericht deutlich wird, welche Prozesse von Inklusion und Exklusion an Schweizer Kunsthochschulen am Wirken sind. Dem Ansatz der partizipativen Forschung folgend wurden Beforschte selber als Ko-Forschende in diese kritische Auseinandersetzung miteinbezogen. Zudem wurde das Projekt von einem internationalen Beirat wissenschaftlich begleitet. Dadurch erschuf das Projekt einen Raum der kritischen Auseinandersetzung, der versuchte, die Prozesse des Ein- und Ausschlusses nicht nur kritisch zu reflektieren, sondern diese Grenzen auch tatsächlich ein Stück weit zu verschieben. Mit dem Projekt wurde ich genauer vertraut, da ich Teile des Abschlussberichts gegenlesen durfte. Die Abschlusskonferenz bot nun Gelegenheit, diesen Raum für ein breiteres Publikum weiter zu öffnen und zudem die Kunst selber als ein Teil des Forschungsprojekts miteinzubinden. Entstanden ist dadurch ein abwechslungsreiches Programm mit 5 Keynotes, zwei Podiumsdiskussionen und einem Parcours von 10 Stationen, in denen sich die Teilnehmenden kritisch-künstlerisch mit dem Thema auseinandersetzen konnten.

Als Philosophin und Gender Studies Lehrende und Lernende aus der Schweiz möchte ich im Folgenden meinen Bericht zur Konferenz der Art.School.Differences mit einem Konzept in Verbindung bringen, das auf die ästhetischen Urteilskraft von Immanuel Kant zurückgeht. Denn mir scheint, dass das Projekt Art.School.Differences versucht hat, einen alternativen und widerspruchsvollen sensus communis herauszubilden. Kant hat in den 1790er Jahren diesen Begriff aufgenommen und ihm eine leicht veränderte Bedeutung verliehen: Er versteht den sensus communis als einen gemeinschaftlichen Sinn, der mit einem konkreten Urteil verwoben ist. Erst durch diesen Bezug auf einen gemeinschaftlichen Sinn kann das Urteil eine Allgemeinheit erhalten, ohne jedoch als zwingender Schluss universalisiert zu sein, der zwischen allgemeinen vernünftigen Ideen und dem konkreten empirischen Material gezogen werden muss. In diesem Sinne sind ästhetische Urteile keine bestimmende, sondern reflexive Urteile, die einen exemplarischen Charakter haben, da sie auf allgemeinere Ideen hindeuten, die im Urteil involviert sind. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es Kant möglich, das Urteil als zugleich subjektiv und allgemein zu charakterisieren. Diese widersprüchlich erscheinende Charakterisierung hat direkt Einfluss auf das Urteil selber: Wir überprüfen unser ästhetisches Urteil, indem wir ‚an der Stelle jedes anderen denken‘ (KdU (1790, 1793 und 1799: §40). Dieses Konzept des sensus communis als erweiterte Denkart wird in meinen Augen dann spannend, wenn zudem eine kleine Abänderung vorgenommen wird: ‚an der Stelle veranderter denken‘. Damit soll an der Stelle jener gedacht werden, die durch die Mehrheitsperspektive an den Rand gedrängt oder gar ausgeschlossen werden. Der Begriff ‚Veranderung‘ (Othering) ist sowohl in der feministischen Theorie (Beauvoir), also auch in der postkolonialen Theorie (Said, Fabian) verankert.
Im Folgenden möchte ich einen kleinen Versuch unternehmen und diese leicht veränderte Version des sensus communis anhand der Abschlusskonferenz weiter ausformulieren.

Welche Prozesse von Veranderung im Kontext von Kunsthochschulen im Vordergrund stehen – und an dessen Stelle es dann zu denken und auch handeln gilt –, gilt es zunächst zu eruieren. Dass sich jedoch Kontexte nicht immer so klar voneinander abgrenzen lassen, machte bereits der erste Tag an der Art.School.Differences deutlich. Denn in Bezug auf die Kunsthochschulen in der Schweiz hat die Präsentation des Forschungsprojekts von Sophie Vögele, Philippe Saner, Pauline Vessely und Carmen Mörsch kenntlich gemacht, wer zu ‚anderen‘ gemacht wird: So sind es insbesondere Schweizer_innen ohne Migrationshintergrund sowie Menschen, die über ihre Familie einen ‚bildungsnahen‘ (und mit Bildung ist hier die institutionalisierte Ausbildung gemeint) Hintergrund mitbringen, die den Weg an die Hochschulen finden. Wie Saner es mit Bourdieu zugespitzt hat: Statistisch lässt sich aufzeigen, dass sich hier eine kulturelle Elite über den Ausschluss anderer sozialer Positionen reproduziert. So wird also bereits im Moment der Zulassung deutlich, inwiefern Kunsthochschulen in machtvollen sozialen und kulturellen Strukturen eingebunden sind. Darüber hinaus kämpfen zugelassene Studierende mit Auswirkungen gegenwärtiger nationaler und internationaler Politik und Wirtschaft, wenn sie für Aufenthaltsbewilligungen, Visa und Wohnräume viel Zeit und Energie aufbringen müssen – wie die Interviews im Film ‚How to Survive in the Swiss Art School Jungle?‘ aufgezeigt haben. Während aus der Sicht der Studierenden klar ist, dass diese externen Studienbedingungen einen grossen Einfluss auf das Studium an einer Kunsthochschule haben können, scheint dies aus Sicht von Leitenden der drei Partnerschulen der Art.School.Differences (Lysianne Léchot Hirt (HEAD – Genève), Hartmut Wickert (ZHdK) und Xavier Bouvier (HEM Genève-Neuchâtel)) vernachlässigbar: Die Umgebung, in denen sich die Kunsthochschulen befinden, scheinen nicht nur ausserhalb ihrer Handlungsreichweite zu liegen, sondern sogar handlungsanleitend zu sein. Die Verbindung zu Gesellschaft, Staat und Wirtschaft wurde auf dem Podium vorüberwiegend verstanden als äussere Anforderung, die eine Kunsthochschule zu erfüllen hat: Sie soll nicht nur marktfähige Subjekte, sondern auch verantwortliche Bürger_innen hervorbringen. Bouvier verdeutlicht, dass Musikhochschulen unter politischem Druck stehen, Wickert erwähnt, dass Studierende professionelle Künstler_innen werden wollen und dadurch bereits während des Studiums einen bestimmten Status erreichen müssen, um später im Markt erfolgreich bestehen zu können. Verschiedene Kontexte auf diese Art zu isolieren, das eigene Feld damit deutlich ein- und abzugrenzen und als Teil eines grösseren, bestimmenden Ganzen zu sehen, kann aus der Perspektive eines Projekts wie der Art.School.Differences problematisiert und kritisiert werden: Hier wird von Gatekeepers zum grossen Teil Handlungsmacht abgestritten und kein Wille zur Veränderung bestehender und deutlich aufgezeigter Exklusionsprozesse gezeigt.

Dass es sich dabei auch um ein epistemologisches Problem handelt, hat die Intervention von Nana Adusei-Poku in der Diskussion des Panels sowie ihre Keynote am Nachmittag deutlich gemacht. Dies lässt sich mit dem von ihr eingebrachten Konzept der ‚racial times‘ erklären. Dieses findet ihre Verankerung darin, dass neue Bücher zuerst an weissen Schulen und erst später an Schwarzen Schulen zugänglich waren. Dadurch wird eine machtvolle hierarchisierende Differenzierung zwischen Gruppen über eine grundlegende Kategorie wie Zeit hergestellt. „Allgemeines Wissen“, so macht dieses Konzept deutlich, ist nicht für alle gleichermassen zugänglich. Auf der anderen Seite finden Schriften von Autor_innen wie Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, May Ayim, Tori Morrison, Franz Fanon und vielen mehr immer noch nicht genügend Aufmerksamkeit. Denn postkoloniale Studien sowie queere Theorien, so stellt Adusei-Poku fest, werden systematisch ignoriert oder als spezielles Feld am Rande hinzugefügt, was letztlich wiederum den weiss en, eurozentrischen Mainstream konsolidiert. Solche wissenspolitischen Entscheide zeitigen ihre Auswirkungen für die Studierenden: So steht die Geschichte und Kultur von einigen Studierenden im Zentrum, die damit strukturell von weissen Privilegien profitieren. Wird versucht, innerhalb der Institution normative Setzungen durch Prozesse der Dekolonisation anzugehen, wird dies von den Institutionen als Bedrohung wahrgenommen, da zentrale Konzepte, die tief in Aufklärung und Moderne verankert sind, hinterfragt werden. Zudem verdeutlicht Adusei-Poku, dass Dekolonisierung nicht direkt mit Empowerment von Schwarzen Menschen und People of Color einhergeht. Sie sieht es deshalb als notwendig an, dass es sichere Räume für Schwarzen Menschen und People of Color ausserhalb von Institutionen geben muss. Damit wird deutlich: Bestrebungen zu einer Dekolonisierung der Institutionen sind einerseits notwendig, aber letztlich immer auch eine Überforderung, wie bereits der Titel ‚Everyone Has to Learn Everything!‘ deutlich macht.

Der Beitrag von Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández hinterfragte den Kontext der institutionalisierten Kunstproduktion, indem er den Fokus auf das grössere Feld der kulturellen Praktiken richtete. Kunstausbildungen an Hochschulen verfolgen laut Gaztambide-Fernández das Ziel, Studierende zu zivilisieren und zu europäischen/westlichen Bürger_innen zu machen. Damit ist Kunst eng verbunden mit impliziten Vorstellungen über eine europäische Vormacht. Mit dem Kunstbegriff werden also koloniale, klassenspezifische und vergeschlechtlichte Hierarchien aufrechterhalten. Mit Blick auf kulturelle Praktiken wird deutlich, dass ‚Kunst‘ einen Prozess von ’naming und framing‘ mit sich bringt: Kulturelle Praktiken können dann als Kunst erscheinen, wenn sie sich auf die europäische ästhetische Tradition bezieht. Die kulturellen Produktionen verorten sich demgegenüber aktiv in konkreten Machtverhältnissen und versuchen auf der symbolischen Ebene zu intervenieren. Es geht darin um materielle Ordnungen, Ressourcen und Verkörperungen, welche die Grundlage für kulturelle Produktion bilden und diese auch prägen. Zudem werden in der kulturellen Produktion auch relationale Ordnungen wie pädagogische Aspekte, soziale, psychische und/oder ethische Beziehungen, explizit thematisiert. Gaztambide-Fernández veranschaulichte dies mit Bildern zu einem Protest von Studierenden aus Puerto Rico, die sich auf der Demonstration als Polizisten verkleidet haben. Dadurch konnten sie die politische Ordnung unterbrechen, was sowohl einen Effekt auf die Demonstrierenden, wie auch die Ordnungshüter_innen hatte.

Eine solche Intervention in die symbolische Ordnung der Kunsthochschule bot die Performance ‚Black Notice‘ von Ntando Cele als Abschluss des ersten Tages. Ihre Freak-Performance als Bianca White brachte das wirkmächtige koloniale Archiv auf die Bühne, das durch ihre Performance bearbeitet und verschoben wurde. Als Bianca White kann sie einen eigenen Raum erschaffen, in dem u.a. rassistische Anekdoten, Bildungsprojekte und Sprachaneignungen wieder-aufgeführt werden und deren perverse, gewaltvolle und verstümmelnde Seite wird gerade durch groteske Einlagen hervorgehoben und damit die hegemoniale Referenz unterbrochen.

Der erste Tag der Abschlusskonferenz hat damit deutlich gemacht, dass ein alternativer sensus communis sich dann bilden kann, wenn institutionalisierte Grenzen als Momente der Macht aufgezeigt und hinterfragt werden. Beide Vortragenden beziehen sich dabei auf Wissen, Erfahrungen und Material, das ausserhalb des Curriculums und des Kanons der jeweiligen Disziplin liegt. So können sie aufzeigen, wie die Grenzsetzung funktioniert und wie das Eingegrenzte sich selber normalisiert.

Damit jedoch kritische Forschungsperspektiven nicht isoliert neben dem Mainstream stehen bleiben, braucht es auch eine postkolonial-dekonstruktive Analyse disziplinärer Kanons, wie dies der Beitrag von Cornelia Bartsch in Bezug auf die Musikwissenschaften unternahm. Mit Blick auf das 18. Jahrhundert fokussierte sie auf die sich damals etablierende ‚absolute Musik‘. Bartsch stellt eine Überblendung des Stammbaums der Musikerfamilie Bach mit dem Stammbaum der Musik fest. Damit wird Musikgeschichte durch drei Charakteristika definiert: einer panoptischen Sichtweise, einem evolutionären Modell sowie der Vergeschlechtlichung der Musik durch den Ausschluss der Frauen. Mit dem Aufkommen der universalen Musik werden Grenzfiguren etabliert, die vergeschlechtlicht wie auch rassifiziert sind. Bartsch kann so verdeutlichen, dass der Kanon der modernen Kunst intrinsisch mit Rassismus verbunden und zudem mit der beginnenden Kommodifizierung der Kunstproduktion verschränkt ist.
Der Beitrag von Rena Onat und Bahareh Sharifi betrachtet die kulturelle Produktion als zentrales Moment zur sozialen Integration. Dabei erkennen sie gegenwärtig eine Logik, nach der in aktuellen deutschen Programmen Geflüchtete als Kunstrezipient_innen angesprochen werden, jedoch nicht als Kunstproduzent_innen. Sie präsentierten das Jugendtheaterbüro ‚kultür auf!‘ aus Berlin als best practice alternativer Kunstproduktion. Mit dem Stück ‚Gentrifihää? GentrifiDichSelbst‘ griffen die Jugendlichen das Thema der Gentrifizierung in Berlin auf, durch den viele der Beteiligten selber direkt betroffen sind. In der Erarbeitung des Stücks wurde die Komplexität von Gentrifizierung deutlich, so bspw. dass keine soziale Gruppe als schuldige für diesen Prozess angeklagt werden kann. Als Resultat ging es vielmehr darum, sich zusammen zu tun und gemeinsam den Kampf dagegen aufzunehmen. Zudem präsentierten sie Arbeiten und Hintergründe des in Berlin lebenden Künstlers Hasan Aksaygin und problematisierten u.a. seine Erfahrungen während dessen Kunstausbildung: So musste Aksaygin den Lehrenden seine Werke erklären, da diese auch auf Referenzen auf die zypriotische Kunst beinhaltete, die den Lehrenden an der Kunsthochschule unbekannt war.

In der letzten Keynote präsentierte Melissa Steyn das Konzept der critical diversity literacy. Damit soll die vorherrschende Epistemologie der Ignoranz, die sie insbesondere mit Blick auf Südafrika ausführt, angegangen werden, die im Gesellschaftsvertrag eingeschrieben ist, der ausschliesslich zwischen weissen geschlossen wurde. Die critical diversity literacy soll aus einem soziopolitisch verorteten Standpunkt eine kritische Linse zur Verfügung stellen. Aus dieser Perspektive soll u.a. deutlich werden, wie Machtstrukturen Differenzen zwischen den Menschen herstellen, die einen Unterschied machen; wie unterschiedliche Unterdrückungssysteme zusammen interagieren, wie diese sich reproduzieren, aber auch wie gegen diese Widerstand geleistet werden kann; die Anerkennung von ‚Rasse‘ und Rassismus als aktuelle und historische soziale Probleme und nicht zuletzt ein Engagement für die Transformation dieser unterdrückenden Systeme mit dem Ziel, mehr soziale Gerechtigkeit auf allen Ebenen der sozialen Organisation umzusetzen. Damit greift Steyn den nicht unproblematischen Modebegriff ‚Diversity‘ auf, der insbesondere durch die Management-Theorie an Einfluss gewonnen hat, stattet ihn jedoch mit einem Anspruch auf soziale Gerechtigkeit aus, was dem allgemeinen Verständnis von Diversity zumeist leider abgeht.

Das Projekt Art.School.Differences hat in meinen Augen deutlich gemacht, dass ein alternativer sensus communis dringend notwendig ist, um in unterschiedlichen Gesellschaften wie auch den darin verorteten Kunsthochschulen und Universitäten Momente der Inklusion und Exklusion benennen und problematisieren zu können. Die zahlreichen Beiträge deuten jeweils exemplarisch auf Ideen von sozialer Gerechtigkeit hin, die sich vielleicht nie vollständig positiv ausformulieren lassen, die wir jedoch durch die Kritik erahnen können. Dieses Verständnis von sensus communis muss widerspruchsvoll und selbstkritisch bleiben, dies auch, weil es gilt, Institutionen hörbar zu kritisieren und auf weitere Handlungsmöglichkeiten aufmerksam zu machen und zugleich eine kritische Gemeinschaft herzustellen und damit auch sich selber Sorge zu tragen und damit sozial und kulturell konstruierte Differenzen zu überwinden. Dieses sich selber Sorge tragen bleibt jedoch auch in sich spannungsvoll, gerade weil unterschiedliche Unterdrückungssysteme am Werk sind, die sich unterschiedlich zusammenschliessen können. Es gilt also auch innerhalb eines alternativen sensus communis, Spannungen auszuhalten und, wenn möglich, sie produktiv zu nutzen. Ich hoffe, dass die Teilnehmenden diesen Anspruch von Art.School.Differences weitertragen. Insgesamt hätte ich der Veranstaltung mehr Aufmerksamkeit gewünscht, denn die Vorträge, Diskussionen, Kunstperformances und Workshops haben die Tragweite des Anspruchs an mehr soziale Gerechtigkeit deutlich gemacht, der weit über den Bereich der Kunsthochschulen hinaus geht.

*Karin Hostettler hat Philosophie und Gender Studies studiert und arbeitet zur Zeit als wissenschaftliche Assistentin für den Fachbereich Gender und Diversity an der Universität St.Gallen. In ihrer Dissertation dezentriert sie den philosophischen Kanon, indem sie eine postkoloniale Interpretation der Schriften des deutschen Aufklärers Immanuel Kant entwirft.

Dienstag, 06UTC%3 6. Dezember 2016

I’M HERE AND I’M BLACK, BUT I’M NOT HERE TO BE BLACK

REPORT ON THE FINAL SYMPOSIUM ART.SCHOOL.DIFFERENCES by Quentin Delval*

Arriving at the Toni Areal after a long day and a longish train ride, I wasn’t in top form when I entered the Hörsaal 1 around 7:15pm. But the setting instantly refreshed me. Attendees were engaged in an intense discussion. “So you’re basically saying you can’t improve living conditions of minority students because that’s not what the market wants, even though you’re part of what creates that market?” was an attendee asking, the microphone in her hands. An art school representative sitting on stage had just explained to the audience that schools depend on what the “market” wants, in terms of student output. “The reality is that we depend on that”, he said, “so it is a bit more complex than just changing curriculum and practices”. He wouldn’t get away with such a “chicken and egg” contradictory stance. I heard someone whisper “so we don’t end colonialist thinking because it expects us not to?”. I raised an eyebrow. Art.School.Differences, you had my attention.
The conversation revolving around how to circumvent institutional inertia (“of course we need to change things, and of course we can’t wait until society’s ready, but we need to do it the smart way”, i.e. not now, not radically) was brought to a halt by the categorical imperative of the clock. But it was only to give us time to attend the next part of the evening, a performance that would show exactly why Art is a necessary part of thinking and changing (minds about) inequalities. Half part prejudice-triggering show, half part Fanon-based concert, the performance was a real chance for one to burst their little own racist bubble. Emphasizing that “I’m here and I’m black, but I’m not here to be black”, the artist also reminded us that “black people can write (books) too” and we should read them. How many books have you read, this year, that have been written by black authors?
Refreshed by the scent of smart, radical questioning emanating from this first evening, I went to sleep with a feeling of impatience for the next day.

TRANSFORMING THE GAZE
It wasn’t just out of personal need for academic brainstorming and entertainment that I appreciated this start of the week-end. One of the main challenges of equality in Universities of Applied Sciences in Switzerland today lies in the need to make contact with and convince the ones who need to be. Transforming the gaze of the people operating at key positions of the power structures. Extend the talk beyond the inner circle of the people already working in the field of equal opportunity and/or social justice. How do you convince people who, most of the time, won’t even hear the words you have to say, won’t share your definitions, perceptions of reality, and immediate interests? The second day of Art.School.Differences’ final symposium would provide ample choice of answers.
The keynotes, to start with, highlighted what certainly are major aspects of how domination is maintained, namely the illusion that it comes from a rhetoric construction one would just have to debunk in order to see equality advance, and the illusion that theoria is how you rebalance the access to the power structures of society. The focus of the talks therefore opened room for a materialist understanding of domination (in Delphy’s sense) coupled with the need of praxis spaces: the sexist and racist theories and distribution of power are the symptom of a power structure that also has to be addressed by granting access to a praxis, a collective experience, interaction, even at a local level, which empowers the individuals with more than words, and potentially changes the minds.

DECENTRALIZE YOUR ASS
And coherently enough, this is what the parcours was all about. Five hours of workshops, interactive performances, questioning discussions – and walking around the building, here getting a glimpse of ballet dancers practicing, there being caught by the red sound of a trumpet – all served the purpose of bringing your senses to your attention. Inequality is not (only) staged in the conscious mind, it is performed by all senses, by all forms of attention, and they all need their time of deconstruction and reconstruction. “What is this?” asks a performer, holding coffee beans in her hands, standing in a dark room in which selective lighting directs your attention, “what is this?”. Someone says “coffee beans” and she reacts “really? Really?”. It is true that we could have said “the direct consequence of a collusion between colonialist structures of power and neoliberal economy” (ah, are those different?), which are also alive in the other items on that table, chocolate, tea, bananas…. It is true we should decentralize our perspective if we were to understand the fabric of the worlds, both objective and subjective. It is true that what we have to decentralize is not only our minds, granting us with the comfortable feeling of having “understood” exclusion or privilege, but it is our very ass that needs to move aside. It is true we have a responsibility in giving birth to the freedom of our perception. That we have to remove our mask and stop expecting others to put one on.
Maybe it is my background in philosophy (or, as one workshop organizer emphasized, aren’t backgrounds rather foregrounds? I had spent the week reading about students with “Migrationshintergund” and that remark hit the right spot), but I found these phenomenological experiences quite on point. They were asking us to think with more than the theoretical bits we had acquired through the years, they were actually asking what thinking really was about. In another workshop, art-related feminist practices were “offered” to the attendees. One could listen to a video by Judith Butler and/or draw and/or look around the room for feminist manifestos and/or take interest in national statistics on gender inequality and/or do nothing. Which was a good revelator of our relative incapacity to seize our curiosity and be an active part of our “decentralization” – most of us were just expecting to be told about this passage from talk to action. But it was ours to build.

HOLDING POWER STRUCTURES ACCOUNTABLE
Another very important part of the symposium had to do with discussing the institutional obstacles to social justice in art schools: often through a clever mobilization of bourdieusian sociology, attendees were invited to reflect upon the conditions of possibility of failure and success in an art school – which, of course, bears important similarities with the rest of the educational landscape. What kind of capital(s) do you need to get in? And once you’re in, how is the institution allowing you to adapt to its contradictory, ambiguous demands of normalization? How do you become this original artist (teacher standard) who still has to evolve in a school standardized to fit the global market (institution standard)? How do you reconcile being asked to develop your own style, your individuality, when diversity is not allowed structurally? How do you deal with being judged solely on your own individual work within one individual class, while at the same time being supposed to be ready for a job market in which you’ll be requested to work in groups on different disciplinary tasks at the same time? How can you succeed when the teachers’ set of skills does not include diversity training, and they confuse your working-class critical perspective on mass-produced aesthetics with a lack of (established) taste? How do you survive never being sure of where you are and why?
The symposium also offered great opportunities to deal with those realities (and I am intentionally not using the word “questions” here), providing some tools to start creating our own synthesis. Art schools can try to “fix the women” and “fix the minorities” by injecting them with skills, resources, networks and access to the established competition. But that won’t serve any other purpose than perpetuating the inherently flawed social logic of the said competition. Art schools have to fix themselves, and have to be held accountable for their involvement in the solidification of discriminating power structures.
This mirrors the priorities of higher education at large today. Whether it is about horizontal (access to the training) or vertical (progression in the structures of power) discrimination, words are not enough, and it is not the minorities who solely “need help”. Educational institutions need to help themselves, educate themselves too. Open praxis spaces, decentralize their perceptions, think of how they can rebuild those on critical grounds, and implement changes – at least those were, among others, leads discussed over the week-end.
And maybe this can start with a simple question, which was also generously given to us in the conclusion to the symposium: to whom do the schools belong? To whom do the schools belong?

*Quentin Delval is working with the development services of Human Resources and diversity at the French University of applied science HES-SO. The team he works with is responsible to coordinate actions for the equality and diversity – and to intitate new ideas – within all the schools affiliated to the structures of Universities of Applied Sciences in the French speaking part of Switzerland (Romandie). In his doctoral thesis in philosophy at the Uiversité de Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium he wrote about how scientific expertise ultimately generates the exclusion of the groups it claimed to represent or protect.

Sonntag, 27UTC%3 27. November 2016

Surviving Art School. An Artist of Colour Tool Kit

We would like to draw your attention to a publication Surviving Art School. An Artist of Colour Tool Kit created by Collective Creativity, which came out of a workshop and lecture at Nottingham Contemporary; discussing race and politics in art schools today. It is accessible via this link.
A further publication key words devised by artist Evan Ifekoye and produced in collaboration with Schools and Teachers Tate London Learning is available via this link.

About Collective Creativity: Collective Creativitiy is an intentional informal non-hierachical collective space created to share ideas to reflect on texts/films/art (and more) in a group setting, that inspire, interest or provoke us and/or our practice. Collective Creativity is a group formed out of necessity, to carve collaborative space outside of the institutional framework where a specific Black QTIPOC (queer/trans* people of colour) voice and experience could be nurtured. Collective Creativity are Evan Ifekoya, Raisa Kabir, Rudy Loewe and Raju Rage. For more information please refer to their website.

Sonntag, 27UTC%3 27. November 2016

A Symposium by Art.School.Differences

Venue: Toni Areal, Zürich on 11 & 12. November 2016
Times: FRI 14-21.15h; SAT 9-18.15h
Please register (free admission): a_s_d.eventbrite.com and indicate if you need special accommodation

A year ago, when asked “why it is so important to have a gender balanced cabinet,” the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau replied, “because it’s 2015!” It is fitting then, in 2016, to renew a collective commitment. Through our research and collaborations in Art.School.Differences we question social inequality in art schools and examine how exclusion interweaves with gender, the body, class, diversity, and internationality, as well as interrogate the structural implications this has on perceptions of the ‘ideal art student.’ It is our goal to understand processes of inclusion and exclusion at work in higher art education in order to challenge, counter, and eventually overturn them. By striving for more equality, plurality, and heterogeneity among the institutions’ students, staff, and curricula we would like to encourage Swiss art schools to become globally inclusive in 2016.

Now, as the research project comes to a close, we would like to encourage further research, initiatives, and interventions to challenge inclusion and exclusion in higher (art) education. Because it’s 2016!

We look very much forward to welcome you to this event, enabling various discussions around inclusionary and exclusionary processes, engaging with anti-discriminatory practices and looking beyond insights acquired through Art.School.Differences!

Flyer
Full programme of the symposium.
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Mittwoch, 26UTC%3 26. Oktober 2016

Disability and Performer Training – a colloquium, Tuesday 25th of october

„The moment when we start having skilled disabled performers lokking for work, they will start pushing the medium.“ (Pedro Madacho, Co-Artistic director, CandoCo Dance Company, UK)
With a critical comment provided by Art.School.Differences in the plenary afternoon-discussion. Flyer

Donnerstag, 06UTC%3 6. Oktober 2016

Save the date, November 11./12.2016: Challenging Exclusion 2016!

SAVE THE DATE: November 11/12.2016 at the Toni Areal, ZHdK, Zürich

Join us for a final symposium by Art.School.Differences
→ Find out about the main findings of the research
→ Listen to keynotes by Nana Adusei-Poku (Rotterdam), Cornelia Bartsch (Hamburg), Rubén Gaztambide-Fernàndez (Toronto), Bahareh Sharifi with Rena Onat (Berlin), and Melissa Steyn (Johannesburg)
→ Support us for the book launch of the Art.School.Differences Reader
→ Attend a panel with the deans of the participating schools (HEAD – Genève, HEM – Genève, ZHdK)
→ Enjoy a performance by Ntando Cele (Bern)

PLAY and WIN in an anti-discriminatory parcours to engage with
→ The daily micro-practices of discrimination of international students at art schools.
→ The notion of good design and its role in design education: „Are you ‚good‘ enough?“
→ Reflections on decolonizing the curricula at art schools: Everyone has to learn everything.
→ Making Differences through solfège.
→ Double-quoted world: how designers with working class background deconstruct universal categories of aesthetics.
→ Mentoring and practices of collective supervision.
→ Challenging power structures in the arts – «the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house» (Audre Lorde).
→ Vage Vorstellung vom eigenen Ausdruck in Kunst und Unterricht.
→ Art related Feminist practices: How to deviate from normativities? Artists at work, from talk to actions.
→ Perceptions of the student’s curriculum at a design school: Resistance, assimilation, dissimulation, confrontation and autonomy.
With: Nana Adusei-Poku, Patricio André, Lorenz Bachofner, Claire Bonnet, Marie-Antoinette Chiarenza, Victor Cordero, Maëlle Cornut, Fabio Fernandes Da Cruz, Laura Ferrara, NIC Kay, Julia Kuster, Paola de Martin, Andrea Nucamendi, Sarah Owens, Romy Rüegger, Nora Schiedt, Micha Seidenberg, Daniel Zea, and others

The conference language will be mainly English with some parcours contributions in German and French.

Conference convenors: Carmen Mörsch, Sophie Vögele, Dora Borer, Philippe Saner with Maja Renn.
For inquiries please contact: Sophie Vögele (sophie.voegele@zhdk.ch)

Flyer Save the date

Mittwoch, 16UTC%3 16. Dezember 2015

29.09.2015: Art.School.Differences @ Brown Bag Lunch ZHdK

Eine kritische Betrachtung der Aufnahmeverfahren an der ZHdK

Dienstag, 29. September 2015, 12.15 bis 13.30 Uhr, ZHdK, Raum 5.K04

Warum studieren nur gesunde, sportliche und «schöne» Menschen Schauspiel? Warum ist «sur dossier» stressiger als mit Matur? Warum werden Koreaner_innen gerne – aber doch nicht so gerne – für das Musikstudium zugelassen? Warum werden an Kunsthochschulen Talente und Potentiale gesucht, obwohl es das ohne Ausbildung nicht gibt? Das Forschungsprojekt «Art.School.Differences» setzt sich kritisch mit den Aufnahmeverfahren an Kunsthochschulen, insbesondere an der ZHdK, auseinander. Sophie Vögele und Philippe Saner, Co-Projektleitende des Forschungsprojekts, präsentieren erste Resultate anhand von Beispielen aus Interviews.

Mit anschliessender Diskussion.

Bitte Sandwich und Getränk mitbringen.

In den Brown-Bag-Lunch-Veranstaltungen der Fachstelle Gleichstellung & Diversity tauschen sich ZHdK-Angehörige, Expert_innen und Interessierte zu Diversity-, Gender- und Gleichstellungsthemen aus. Kurze Inputreferate eröffnen Gespräche und Chancen zur Vernetzung. Mehr Infos: www.zhdk.ch/gleichstellung

Montag, 28UTC%3 28. September 2015

Summaries of Co-Research Projects

HEAD Projects

How to survive in the Swiss art school jungle
The project of Daniel Zea, Hyunji Lee and Andrea Nucamendi is concerned with the inequalities faced by non-European students at Swiss art schools. The research group that understands itself as a collective has identified several administrative and everyday challenges structuring the marginalization of non-European students at HEAD such as money and paperwork, language, artistic and conceptual references, or the lack of courses that transmit basic technical skills. While focusing on the students’ lived experiences, their survival strategies, and their everyday and artistic responses to discrimination, the collective is also asking how a more just treatment of non-European students could contribute to a more successful internationalisation of the art school. These questions will be addressed through the creation of a web-series in which non-European students and teachers speak about their experiences and (strategic) responses to discriminations (see https://vimeo.com/search?q=coKo+nuts for first videos). This video documentation seeks to (1) make visible and raise consciousness about mechanisms of exclusion, (2) to equip non-European students with tools to perceive of (and cope) with discrimination, and (3) to think about the ways in which art schools could enhance their process of internationalisation, notably by making reflection on structural inequalities an integral part of the curriculum.

Alterity put into center
Martine Anderfuhren, Patricio André, Claire Bonnet, Fabio Fernandes Da Cruz and Ivan Gulizia from HEAD’s department of visual communication seek to initiate a series of events that stresses the ways in which students differ from the school’s assumed norm. In a first step of preliminary inquiry, the research team has identified strategies which students deploy to tame and curtail their “alterity” over the course of their study. They developed a definition of “alterity” and found five dynamics – assimilation, concealment, confrontation, resistance, and autonomy – which were tested with the help of a self-administrated questionnaire. The team’s initial concern with the tools students and lecturers may seize in order to call attention to the art school’s internal “others” has increasingly given way to the question of how an informal networking and mentoring system could be developed, whereby different students god-mother_father each other. The first event they have planned for shall be announced by a “fire alarm” signalling the urgency of questioning institutional norms and its processes suppressing difference. It is the requisite initial event from which further unannounced events shall follow, sparking off exchange and conversations on the (existing) diversity within the student and teaching body. The aim is to make “alterity” a functioning principle that is conscious and present throughout institutional processes. In this way and along the events, the project shall grow and eventually spread to other departments of the school and be taken up by further student cohorts.

HEM Projects

The socio-cultural & socio-economic backgrounds of non-European students
Patrik Dasen and Soojin Lee conduct an ethnographic study that investigates the socio-cultural and socio-economic backgrounds of non-European students at the HEM-Genève. They are particularly interested in their musical trajectories and their lived experiences in Geneva. The study is based on semi-structured narrative interviews that focus on a broad range of issues such as the students’ family backgrounds, their current financial situation in Geneva or their relationship to the school’s and the Swiss federal administration (regarding visa issues ect). A preliminary analysis of these in-depth conversations complicates generalized notions about the assumed comfortable, upper-class status and the privileged position of international music students. While evaluating their everyday needs and intense institutional struggles in Switzerland, the researchers also aim at valorising the socio-cultural potential non-European students represent for the school. Further, interested in student-teacher interaction, they are also interviewing teaching staff. The data generated allows for the sensitisation and the opening up of critical debates among and between students, teachers and administrative staff, concerning the processes of discrimination at the heart of the institution.

Solfège – a universal language?
Victor Cordero, Bernardo Di Marco and Micha Seidenberg suggest that solfège (ear training), as it is currently understood and taught at Swiss music academies needs to be profoundly rethought. Contrary to popular notions about the universality of music theory, the theoretical premises of solfège are far from being universal. Rather, there is a variety of underestimated non-western pedagogic traditions that theorize musical processes in ways that have not made it into higher education. Based on qualitative interviews with students, professors, and executives and on the analysis of statistics by HEM-Genève, the group explores the structural exclusions of (mostly) non-European music students who were not socialized into the inherently Euro-American solfège tradition – hence who have not been trained to read or rewrite a score after hearing music. While solfège plays a decisive role in the admission process at Swiss music academies, its testing demands competences acquired prior to entering higher education. By assessing (universal) cognitive competences according to a regional tradition, music academies are prone to overlook much artistic potential. Given that HEM-Genève wishes to attract and integrate “international” students, thus students, whose cognitive ear training may differ from the way in which solfège has been constructed by Euro-American art schools, the conflicts emerge that are the object of this study.

ZHdK Projects

The notion of “good design” in higher design education
The project of Sarah Owens, Tingshan Cavelti and Allaina Venema interrogates the figure of the “good designer“ and the seemingly universal nature of “good design“ with its implicit claim to moral integrity. Starting from the BA course in Visual Communication at ZHdK, they ask how the “good designer“ is constructed within professional discourses and within the logic of tertiary education. A preliminary analysis of design journals and conversations with students shows that the most celebrated designers tend to be able-bodied, white men who represented as “design mavericks” or “design service providers”. In as much as these figures function as role models at German Swiss design schools, it needs to be asked how they shape and homogenize students’ professional identities, and to what extent their construction works to perpetuate the internationally recognized “Swiss style.”
The project thus aims at questioning and interrupting this seemingly natural, reproductive cycle. This will be done by examining curricula and teaching materials, and by instigating critical conversations among students and teachers over unspoken understandings of “good design” and related key terms such as “good taste,” “talent,“ or “creativity”. Finally, the norms constructed within admission procedures, presentation of final works, employment strategies, or criteria for course self-evaluation shall be discussed and, while always considering the school’s institutional framework, possibly modified.

Notions of one’s “own expression” in grammar school art education
Julia Kuster, Laura Ferrara, Lorenz Bachofner, and Nora Schiedt interrogate how grammar school art educators understand the phrase “own expression” (“eigener Ausdruck”) in art education, as well as related key terms such as individuality, autonomy, or authenticity. They are concerned with the in- and exclusions produced by these understandings. Based on their own experiences as former grammar pupils, as MA students of Art Education at ZhdK and as future grammar school art educators, the group sees itself positioned at an interface where aesthetic tastes, norms and values have been reproduced without thorough reflection.
Their preliminary analysis shows that finding one’s “own expression” amounts to more than a learning target. Inscribed in grammar school curricula, this phrase reflects ideas about artist originality that hail from the project of enlightenment. In practice, expression is equated with originality and contrasted with imitation, e.g. when teachers mention a pupil’s manga-style drawings as an example for lacking “own expression”. The group has been collecting, visualizing, and mapping thoughts, questions, pictures and teaching materials; this “mapping” serves as a guide for further interviews (at Kantonsschule Küsnacht) and is continually extended by the examples art educators contribute from their own teaching practice. Based on this mapping, the group envisions the production and dissemination of digital and analogue leaflets, are aimed at sensitizing art instructors at different institutions.

Inclusion und Exclusion through mentoring in artist education
Romy Rüegger and Yvonne Wilhelm are examining the mentoring format in the BA program in Art and Media and the MA in Fine Arts at ZHdK. Mentoring consists of a series of one-on-one conversations between teacher and student or, possibly, artist group: An experienced artist accompanies a prospective artist (group) in developing their practice and recommends references, work methods, decision-making tools ect. Inevitably, these conversations are shaped by differences in artistic socialization and professionalization that foster mutual preferences, discriminations, in- and exclusions. Given that mentoring has been a tool to sustain cultural differences, to perpetuate the existing canon and to reproduce exclusive and excluding relationships within the field of art, the project addresses the (potential) “bonds” and the power relations at the heart of the intimate mentoring situation.
Due to different personal and institutional positions, Romy Rüegger (as an assistant and BA tutor) and Yvonne Wilhelm (as a lecturer in the MA program) follow slightly different approaches. From the outset, they have been documenting their mentoring experiences and research strategies on a semi-public blog. Their sporadic exchange with mentored, co-researching students will be continued and the research results of mentors and students shared on a second, semi-public blog. Further, in spring 2016 a workshop on the mentoring format will be developed and offered; as an artistic outcome, performative presentations on artistic research are being contemplated.

All of you: Thanks for your amazing work!

Serena O. Dankwa.

Freitag, 18UTC%3 18. September 2015

Disability, ableism and the body in art schools

Colloquium no. 5; Friday 3rd July 2015, 18.00 at HEAD – Genève

The assumption that everybody is physically and mentally fit, efficient and productive is so much at the heart of higher education that ableism is often times not considered when it comes to diversity. In preparing for its fifth and final colloquium, the Art.School.Differences team realized how central disability as a category of analysis is in understanding processes of inclusion and exclusion in the field of higher education.

Disability studies have deconstructed the assumed difference between able and disabled bodies by pointing out that we are all only temporarily abled-bodied: Sooner or later every-body will face physical or mental restrictions and depend on helping hands and devices. Nevertheless, ableism is easily overlooked in our outcome- and efficiency-oriented teaching and research practices. And, ableism is much more than the discrimination or social prejudice against people with visible or invisible impairments. It is based on the notion of an ideal bodily standard and the fundamental distinction from everything that deviates from this standard. In higher art education in particular, the assumption looms large that passion and dedication imply working 24/7 and being ready and able to ignore such basic needs as eating or sleeping. If the aim is to create an art school free of discrimination, we need to ask how the body is represented in and by art schools, and what ableism means for teaching, for learning and for our understanding of art and aesthetics in general.

Only very recently disability has been made part of diversity policies in art institutions. But as Sophie Vögele noted in her welcome address, while the diversity of institutions is measured by counting nationalities of students and addressed by organizing multicultural dinners, there are no serious measures taken so far to tackle ableism. This would imply that “institutions provide access to disabled students and teachers in order to allow them to pursue their studies and work, but it is also important to acknowledge disability as a potential for new or non-mainstream artistic expression.“ A famous example for such new forms of expression is the British dance film by DV8 Physical Theatre and its principal character David Tool, a dancer without legs. https://www.youtube.com/watchv=QgUT0Ufmkbk&feature=youtu.be

In his introductory comments Xavier Bouvier, Head of Studies and Head of the Composition & Theory Department of the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève, addressed the challenge of creating more “equal, fair and non-normative“ art school curricula. In particular he focused on some of the keywords in the latestet version of the Bologna Declaration of Europe’s Ministry of Education. Among other the Bolgona reform, which has initiated fundamental changes in order to create the “European Higher Education Area,“ aims at developing “competence based“ curricula. The term “competence“ refers to the applicability of knowledge, hence the student’s capacity to apply the knowledge acquired and be fit for the labour market. In this context of applicability and employ-ability, competence profiles are in danger of perpetuating a form of ableism which dis-ables certain students. Unless designers of competence profiles validate the (often creative) ways in which students with disabilities acquire and apply knowledge and consider their alternative skills and strategies as an asset, the logic of competence will not enhance the presence of such students with special needs.

In the art school context the question of who will be employable and which competences will matter most in the future is tricky, given that the market for performing artists has undergone and will continue to undergo enormous changes in the decades to come. Success measured within the normative model of being able to answer to a prior fixed market demand, may be less important than the ability to build new demands. Another point Bouvier singled out is Bologna’s ambitious goal to foster “intercultural understanding“ in order to “strengthen European and global citizenship and lay the foundations for inclusive societies.“ Especially in the context of “conservatoires“ that seek to conserve and transmit certain musical traditions, it is hard work to build up artistic understanding across cultures. Taking into account that music cultures are steeped in traditions that “frequently behave in normative ways much remains to be done.“

Sébastien Kessler the main speaker of the evening, describes himself as an activist. Kessler has an engineering degree in physics at the EPFL of Lausanne and a Master in Health Economics. Asked to represent the point of view of a person with a “handicap,” he got increasingly involved in adult education. Kessler co-founded a consultancy that specializes in universal access and has worked with Swiss hospitals, airports and universities.

Kessler took his personal experiences as starting point to his presentation. As July 3^rd was one of those dog days of summer, he started his presentation by addressing the way in which the heat affects wheel chair users. He did so by polemically instructing us, the non-wheel-chair-using audience, to add something to our curricula: “Stick your feet to the floor, the back to chair and don’t move for an hour. If you don’t manage you’ll get a bad mark.“ The lesson: We tend to be unaware that heat and sweat makes it harder to sit for long hours without getting soar; the ability to sit amounts to an unspoken (ableist) requirement of higher education.

Aimed at informing and educating, Kessler’s presentation highlighted a range of disabling practices, as well enabling strategies and self-representations of „handicapped“ people. A North American „disability sensitive training“ video he showed (see the link in the last slide of PPT Sébastien Kessler) was particularly impressive, if only because, both white people and people of colour spoke about their disabilities. By explaining how they liked to be interacted with, they account for the fact that it is not easy “to interact with people you are not accustomed to,” as Kessler put it. What goes unsaid of course, is that they are thereby taking on the burden of educating their fellow “non-disabled” people.

A critical aspect that came up when Kessler mentioned Switzerland’s recent vote in favour of embryo testing, was the question of happiness. While some disability organizations supported the new law, others questioned its eugenic premises and the implied link between dis/ability and un/happiness. Kessler suggested that economic privilege – which, as I would add, tends to be accompanied by racial privilege – plays a major role in whether or not an impaired person can live a comfortable, and supposedly happier life. Without further exploring the question of suffering and happiness, Kessler pointed out that a monthly allowance of 1500 CHF, the minimum Swiss disability pension, makes life challenging. He further indicated that his own mobility and visibility as an activist owes much to the fact that his parents had the means to send him to good schools. His social and cultural capital as a white male Swiss citizen helped in finding an internship and enter a job through the backdoor, in making strategic choices about his studies (public health) and becoming an entrepreneur in a sector (the private field of disability) in which, as he says, his visible impairment is an asset rather than a disability.

“Le freak, c’est chick!” the title picture to Kessler’s presentation is a still from the American horror film “Freaks” by Tod Browning.

Produced in 1932, its actors and actresses usually performed in carnival sideshow where they were to show case their physical „deformities.“ According to Wikipedia, the original version of „Freaks“ was considered to be too shocking and was destroyed. Today, people with disabilities figure in dogma films such as Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the waves “ or “Danger in the Dark” (see picture below). It would have to be examined not only how exactly they are portrayed, but also how they are positioned in terms of their racial, gender, and class affiliation.

„Disabled people are never represented as normal. They are either super intelligent or they are incorporated as the villain, they are represented as either inefficient or as highly talented.“[1] The later notion of being extraordinary, intersects with attempts to produce positive images, by portraying what, say, sportsmen in wheel chairs are capable of. Showing a video ad on disabled sports, Kessler mentions that he himself, regardless of his non-sportive looks, has been asked whether he plays Basketball. Ironically, as I would add, able-bodied young Black men get asked the same question; the connecting logic perhaps being: there are certain “other“ fields, such as sports or music, in which even non-normative bodies are credited for their successful performance.

Kessler himself did not focus on the ways in which different minoritized groups are interpellated by the same norms, or excluded in different or similar ways. Neither did he engage with the ways in which different marginalized groups are being played against each other, politically and in cultural representations. Rather, concerned with determining the needs of and providing universal access to people with a variety of physical and mental impairments, his key message was: “you are not disabled everyday, you are in a disabling position depending in your environment and what concepts you meet.“ This important message also transpires in his carefully put together powerpoint presentation PPT Sébastien Kessler.

[1] However, Kessler also reminded us of the adds that depicted happy children affected by trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) in the late 1980s, in which people with disabilities are portrayed as, at least potentially, “normal” consumers.

Serena O. Dankwa
is a classical musician who became a radio journalist who became a black feminist anthropologist
https://www.zhdk.ch/?person/detail&id=201721

Dienstag, 14UTC%3 14. Juli 2015

Invite to colloquium 5: Disability, ableism and the body: Diversifying, the politics of representation and queering art school

Friday, 3rd of July 2015

18.00h
Xavier Bouvier, Haute École de Musique (HEM)
Welcoming and introductory remarks

18.15h – 19.45h
Sébastien Kessler: Le freak, c’est chic

In his talk, Sébastien Kessler – “survivor of eugenics” or “opportunistic slacker” – embraces his visible impairment as an asset rather than a disability. He asks: What is our perspective on a population that is stigmatized at times, as being vulnerable, while at other times is being judged as impressive? How do you balance the conflicting and yet most normal desires to be both ordinary and extraordinary? Come listen to Sébastien and participate in a debate on the art of being a freak in our contemporary society. — Freak out!

[dis]abled, Sébastien Kessler is a physicist and health economist, an alderman in Lausanne’s City Council, a community activist and the founder of a consulting firm that specializes in universal access to built and outdoor environments and services (www.id-geo.ch)

Venue: Haute École d’Art et de Design, HEAD, Auditoire, Boulevard James Fazy, 15, Geneva.

Freitag, 19UTC%3 19. Juni 2015

Global Exclusion and Diversity: Reading Migration and Gender in Art Schools

Colloquium no. 4 Friday 24^th April 2015, 18.00 at ZHdK

Radical lectures delivered in less radical institutional settings tend to be opened by official welcome notes that are well-intended, but often boring or that even downplay the radical stance the lecture itself is about to propose. This was not the case on April 24^th, when David Keller, head of International Affairs at ZHdK, welcomed Melissa Steyn and Marie Buscatto in Zurich. In front of a full house, Keller opened the evening by acknowledging the ambivalence of his own position, as a “super privileged, white, heterosexual man from a middle-class background,” in the context of a programme that aims to destabilise the hegemony of that very position.

Having been involved with literacy projects in development cooperation in Latin America, Keller was particularly interested in Steyn’s concept of “critical diversity literacy.” Steyn argues that “those socialized into spaces of relative disadvantage tend to be more literate in critical diversity,” than those who are born into positions of privilege. Taking this statement at face value, Keller wondered if he was invited to attend the evening in order to improve his own “diversity literacy,” hence his own capacity to read and recognize processes of discrimination, by being exposed to an experience of multiple exclusion himself (as supposeldy one of the few straight white men in the lecture hall). While this remark might have sounded a bit heavier than intended, it does speak to the spectre haunting those who are indeed comfortably occupying privileged social positions.

Without justifying those who feel pressured, threatened or even “discriminated” against when confronted with the demands of a critical diversity agenda, Keller suggested that such (defensive) responses indicate that “something powerful is coming.” Further, he held that Paulo Freire’s major work “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” should be inverted and rewritten into a ”Pedagogy for the Oppressor“ who is ready to work on his ”failed socialization“ and be educated on the injustices he did not learn to see. Keller closed his opening remarks by welcoming Melissa Steyn as the “critical friend” needed to ask provocative questions and offer her critique.

Keller was followed by Carmen Mörsch, head of the institute for Art Education, who introduced the lecturers in more detail, after assuring Keller that Art.School.Differences project considers him an ally: Keller’s attempts at reflecting on ZHdK’s process of internationalization by discussing critical theories were, she said, highly appreciated by the Art.School.Differences team.

18.15h
Melissa Steyn (Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg)
Getting into focus for the 21st Century: Critical Diversity Literacy as an essential lens

Melissa Steyn, best known for her work on whiteness in post-Apartheid South Africa, has been developing Diversity Studies as field in Higher Education since 2001. She holds the South African National Chair in Critical Diversity Studies and is the founding director of the Wits Center for Diversity Studies, which challenges ideas about difference through research and education.

Steyn understands diversity as a mode of “being different together“ that is enabling for everybody. As simple as this may sound, in reality it’s complicated. Especially since diversity has become a core trope for the world and since claims to be in favour of diversity have become standard – not least in Higher Art Education. Steyn’s framework of “Critical Diversity Literacy“ accounts for the fact that achieving true diversity is a struggle that is far from being a carnivalesque celebration and consumption of differences, as neo-liberalism tries to make us believe. This critical type of literacy is much more than a private, cognitive skill to encode and decode written texts. Rather, this literacy connotes the socially and culturally embedded capacity of reading, or, drawing on France Winddance Twine, “of receiving and responding to a social climate and prevalent structures of oppression.” ^{^[1]}

Steyn defines Critical Diversity Literacy (CDL) as “an informed analytical orientation that enables a person to ‘read’ prevailing social relations as one would a text, recognizing the ways in which possibilities are being opened up or closed down for those differently positioned within“ a specific social context. For years, Steyn has been working on and extending the criteria to assess (someone’s) CDL. I will focus on three of the ten critical points she outlined in Zurich:

1. an understanding of the role of power in the construction of differences that make a difference.
Point one gets at the heart of how the social is constructed. It conveys that unequal power dynamics are the medium through which differences become salient. We first need to detect the discourses that hold centres and margins in place and determine whose life opportunities are restricted and whose are enabled as a result. This can only be done by putting power at the centre of analysis.

2. recognition of the unequal symbolic and material values of different social locations. This includes acknowledging hegemonic positionalities and concomitant identities and how these position non-hegemonic others.
Dominant groups are the ones who possess the freedom to define which differences matter. The privileged have the power of define the oppressed populations as the others. While these others may also have internalized normative understanding of themselves (as an example Steyn mentions that “good Blacks“ in South Africa perform their blackness in a way that makes whites feel comfortable), they still tend to have a better more receptive understanding of how social dynamics of exclusion are operating.

9. understanding the role of emotions, including our own emotional investments, in all of the above
As affect theory has shown, the way we feel about others and about ourselves, our emotional responses are not inevitable or “natural”, but acquired. Through socialisation we learn who we are supposed to trust and feel close to, and who we are supposed to fear. CDL requires the willingness to explore of our sense of self and to recognise our privilege or complicity. However uncomfortable this process be, becoming aware of how we have been shaped emotionally is crucial to the process in letting go routinized responses and becoming critical diversity literates.

Last but not least, as Steyn emphasizes, point ten reminds us that critical diversity literacy implies not just the capacity to read but also the capacity to (re)write the script that lead to exclusions:
10. an engagement with transformation of those oppressive systems towards deepening social justice at all levels.

While I have picked out four point that seem particularly relevant to myself, you should consult the powerpoint presentation in which Melissa Steyn names all the ten criteria she developed: Presentation Melissa Steyn

Discussion:
Steyn’s insistence on a critical perspective reflects that un-critical diversity projects are part and parcel of neo-liberal agendas. The fact that diversity is a form of literacy that needs to be acquired (rather than consumed and celebrated), implies that it is crucial to focus on power dynamics. Steyn understands diversity as struggle against existing power blocks that need to be changed. Asked about the strategies of survival of those who try to enact critical diversity literacy, Steyn pointed out that it is important of being aware of how draining and “dangerous” this work can be. Comparing the Swiss situation of diversity and its study to the South African engagement with diversity, Steyn holds that it is in fact harder to persuade the “centers” (like Switzerland) to shift. In South Africa discussions concerning the need for critical diversity are held less politely and with an urgency that is perhaps necessary to make changes.

19.15
Marie Buscatto (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)
Art worlds as gendered worlds

Marie Buscatto is well-known for her empirical work on “artistic practices as gendered practices.” An amateur jazz musician herself, she has used both ethnographic and classical sociological methods in exploring the role of female artists in the world of jazz in particular. In her presentation at ZHdK she set out to explain why men in arts “always fare better than women in terms of becoming and remaining recognized as artists,” and why, nevertheless, increasing numbers of female artists are being successful. With regard to her binary use of gender categories (“woman” / “man”), Buscatto sent ahead that she considered “transsexuals” a recent and relatively marginal phenomenon that she did not consider in her study.

Despite the public perception about the open-minded of the art world, it is highly gendered in ways that leads to the marginalisation of female performers over time. Here’s a summary of the main points of this gradual, cumulative process:
1. as in other professional fields, female performers are overrepresented in devaluated, feminine connoted areas such as dancing and singing. In jazz this imbalance is striking – 96% of all instrumentalists are male and 65% of all singers are female – and reflects how the gendered order is naturalized in music from an early age. Boys, for instance, may be encouraged to pick up an electric guitar and allowed to explore informal (musical) environments, whereas girls are rather called into learning formal, classical instruments.
2. socializing works better for male than for female performers. Buscatto mentions that it is difficult to feel comfortable as a woman in an otherwise all male band, because the men “don’t feel comfortable with you either.” To the men feels safer to play (music) with colleagues of your own gender, and, as I would add your own race.
3. persistent stereotype about women not being powerful creators, complicates recognition as an independent female artist. When female pop musicians do become famous, it’s assumed that someone else writes their hits for them, that they are backed by powerful boyfriends, or that it is their (physical) seductiveness that makes them successful. Male seduction, however, is associated with action and creativity.
4. women struggle to articulate private and professional life not because they have children, but rather, because unlike their male who are backed by a helpful girlfriend, heterosexual female artists tend to have lovers who are themselves busy artists and less prepared to cater to their partner’s career and professional needs.

Nevertheless, a number of factors have contributed to the raising numbers in women in art, since female artists are strategically:
1. turning feminine stereotypes into an asset; women artists in particularly “feminine” and devaluated fields (such as knitting) managed to revert stigma and end up being considered original.
2. consciously or unconsciously deploying “feminine capital such as seduction” as a marketing strategy, while remaining aware that drawing on certain stereotypes is counterproductive, because it makes you a “feminine artists” and not a universal artist.
3. “compensating” exclusions by drawing on formal funding programmes and/or on their class privileges. Generally, female musicians are equipped with more cultural capital and have better access to (male) social networks.
– they tend to have higher educational degrees than men; art schools are efficient in allowing young women to practice networking and performance skills that are hard to gain in stigmatizing, informal spaces.
– public funding and projects for underprivileged youth in popular music and dance seem to have a positive effect for women.
– it has been shown that the use of screens to hire orchestra musicians has elevated the percentage of female orchestra musicians by 30%.
4. involving themselves in collective action and commercial and/or feminist initiatives organized for (or by) all-female bands and groups of artists.

Discussion:
While appreciating Buscatto’s empirical findings, her neglect of intersectional and historical works by black and queer theorists was critiqued. First, her pre-empting comment about trans*issues being a recent phenomena was interrogated on the basis that gender-queers (people transgressing gender binaries in various in/visible ways) have existed long before the term trans* gained currency. The risk of reproducing certain stereotypes (e.g. about women’s use of seduction) looms large, when gender binaries are taken for granted. This leads to an epistemological blind spot, for instance on the structuring effects of what queer theorists identified as “male homosociality” or on what disables or allows for the reversal of certain stigmatizations and not others. Further, it would be interesting to consider contemporary female performers who reject to play on their femininity (by wearing baggy clothes ect) against the background of a long history of female musicians who cross-dressed and/or passed as men in performance spaces. This “queering” of the gaze does not mean we look for “homosexuals.” It compels us, however, to consider strategies of seduction or of non-seduction by making use of interdisciplinary theories on the intertwinement of gender and sexuality.

The discussion continued the following day in the colloquium among the professors and co-researchers during the Art.School.Differences colloquium. It illuminated the challenge of communicating across disciplines and the need to connect sociological research tools to cultural theories in order to understand the many faces of exclusion.

^[1] France Winddance Twine refers to reading practices in the context of what she coined as “racial literacy.”

Serena O. Dankwa
is a classical musician who became a radio journalist who became a black feminist anthropologist
https://www.zhdk.ch/?person/detail&id=201721

Donnerstag, 30UTC%3 30. April 2015

Public lecture by Jackie McManus

18.03.2015, ZHdK:

Hopes and Fears for Art: Policy and Practice in Widening Participation in Art and Design Higher Education in the UK

Jackie McManus (University of the Arts, London)

Jackie McManus’ evening lecture drew on one of the core references for Art.School.Differences: The study “Art for a Few: Exclusion and Misrecognition in Higher Art and Design Education” by Penny Jane Burke and Jackie McManus (2009). This study evaluated the British government initiative “Widening Participation” (WP) a ongoing programme that has redressed the under-representation of certain social groups in higher education since the late 1990s. While WP has become a key policy discourse (in the UK and internationally), McManus reminded us that the objective of diversifying the student body is still largely driven by economic and utilitarian aims of creating a better-educated workforce. WP’s neo-liberal motivations are paralleled and underpinned by the increasing marketization of higher education: degrees in art and design subjects are no longer eligible for government subsidy, and the reality is that that is restricting, rather than widening participation.

McManus’s presentation illuminated the insidious ways in which exclusion still operates by focusing on the admissions procedures she observed at five British art schools. In particular she examined the case of a black working-class woman, on whose admissions interview she sat in. The interview with the young woman, who was applying for a fashion design BA, was cut short after said she was influenced by hip hop and interested in designing sports tops. Before the interview took place, the interviewers had not deemed her portfolio weak. But after the interview they agreed they would say her portfolio was weak as the reason for rejecting her. In her assessment form the tutors made notes about the „unfashionable clothes“ she was wearing. Moreover, the fact that the candidate intended to live with her parents while studying was read as a sign of immaturity. The „expensively dressed“ English-white middle-class male candidate interviewed immediately afterwards, who intended to leave home („because it’s all part of the experience“), and „cited famous contemporary artists“, but had „considerably poorer qualifications,“ was offered a place.

Admission practices are tied up with complex operations of exclusion that privilege the habitus and „the cultural and linguistic capital of ’traditional’ students, who tend to come from white, middle-class backgrounds.“ McManus‘ findings confirm the observations the Art.School.Differences team made within the admissions procedures at Swiss art schools: In McManus’ words, admissions judgments tend to be „shaped by implicit, institutionalized, disciplinary and racialised perspectives of what counts as legitimate forms of experience and knowledge.“ It is thus not enough to work at rendering admissions processes more „transparent;“ transparency alone does not make them more „fair.“ Fairness implies teaching those with the supposedly „wrong“ influences and backgrounds, how to access and decipher admissions information, how to decode unspoken institutional assumptions and how to develop their own (admissions) strategies and portfolios. Often, however, art educators who work with working-class and „Black and ethnic minority“ youth focus on vocational techniques (such as making handbags or printing T-shirts) rather than on imparting the discursive skills and strategies it takes to access and persist in the field of higher art education themselves.

Jackie McManus’s PowerPoint Presentation: McManus_Lecture_Widening Participation

Serena O. Dankwa
is a classical musician who became a radio journalist who became a black feminist anthropologist
https://www.zhdk.ch/?person/detail&id=201721

Samstag, 18UTC%3 18. April 2015

24./25. April 2015: Global Exclusion and Diversity

ÖFFENTLICHE ABENDVORTRÄGE

Global Exclusion and Diversity: Reading Migration and Gender in Art Schools

Freitag 24. April 2015, 18.00 – 20.15, mit anschliessendem Apéro Riche

Die Referentinnen Melissa Steyn und Marie Buscattobefragen in ihren Vorträgen Diversität, Geschlecht und Migration im Kunstfeld aus einer feministischen und postkolonialen Perspektive und weisen auf konkrete Möglichkeiten hin, Differenzen zu lesen und kritisch zu reflektieren. Diese Anregungen haben für die ZHdK eine grosse Relevanz für Forschung, Lehre und Hochschulentwicklung – aber auch darüber hinaus für weitere institutionelle Felder.

18.00h
Begrüssung: David Keller, Leiter International Affairs ZHdK
Einführung: Carmen Mörsch, Leiterin Institute for Art Education ZHdK

18.15h
Melissa Steyn (Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg)
Getting into focus for the 21st Century: Critical Diversity Literacy as an essential lens
„The ‚Critical Diversity Literacy‘ framework can be regarded as an informed analytical orientation that enables a person to ‚read‘ prevailing social relations as one would a text, recognizing the ways in which possibilities are being opened up or closed down for those differently positioned within the unfolding dynamics of specific social context. The presentation will outline ten criteria for ‚Critical Diversity Literacy‘.“

19.15h
Marie Buscatto (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)
Art worlds as gendered worlds
„Based on several empirial examples, this talk will try to describe not ony how women tend to find it more difficult to operate as artists than their male colleagues, but also resources and tools women, consciously or tno, use to transgress such gendered limiting processes in order to become and to remain artists over time, and sometimes, even to become famous worldwide arists!“

20.15: Apéro Riche

Ort: Hörsaal 1, Level 3 Toni-Areal, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Pfingstweidstrasse 96, 8031 Zurich

artSchoolDifferences 24.April15

Mittwoch, 08UTC%3 8. April 2015

De-Privileging Art School: antisexist and antiracist methods

Colloquium no. 3: Friday 27^th February 2015, 18.00 at HEAD-Genève

“Exception is a comfortable situation, allowing elasticity and singularity in our daily work, in our daily institutional management and in our world view.” Lysianne Léchot, dean of Studies at Geneva University of Art and Design was clear in her welcome address: notions of exceptionalism are at the heart of art school and need to be rethought. “Exception can be precious when it comes to art and design: aesthetic beauties and intellectual strength are, in the very best examples, exceptional,” Léchot continued. “But exception can also be a pitfall. Especially in a public educational institution. When schools reproduce social, ethnic or gender inequalities in their daily work, in their daily management and in their world view, they should be criticised, and transformed, so as to match the democratic ambition of equal opportunity for all.”

If notions of being exceptional and therefore somehow outside or above society allow art schools to measure things with a different yardsticks and to be less transparent and less accountable, institutionalized exceptionalism is indeed a pitfall. Such art school exceptionalism undermines broader attempts to dismantle structural discrimination in tertiary education. As I see it, it inhibits the frequently invoked quest for “diversity” – the discovery of supposedly unexpected talent that can innovatively undermine the normative. Who determines who is, objectively speaking, exceptional and talented enough to be admitted into higher art education? How ‘objective’ are the supposedly objective selection criteria, when notions of who has “potential” and what potential looks like, tend to be inherently classed and racialized? What criteria can we establish to ensure that “the chosen few“ entering and completing art school come from a range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds?

Some of these questions were discussed in the afternoon session preceding the public evening lecture evening (opened by Lysianne Léchot). The seven co-research groups, consisting of students and teachers from ZHdK, HEAD and HEM, discussed a preliminary booklet of recommendations on how to foster equality and plurality at art schools which has been compiled by Art.School.Differences. These recommendations set out the areas of conflict within the admissions process at the three schools. Among other things, they indicate the proportion of Swiss art students from migrant backgrounds, so-called ‘secondas’ and ‘secondos’, and highlight that, although gender considerations have been integrated into the admission process, they revolve around binary, hetero-normative understandings of gender; and thus ideas about the masculine or feminine characteristics of an applicant are made, without consideration of gender-queer or non-normative femininities. The recommendations also include concrete tools and criteria with which to further reflect on and make more transparent the processes of admission. The co-researchers especially welcomed the recommendation that all candidates, not least the rejected ones, should be given a feedback – even if they do not dare to ask for it. Institutional feedback would turn the admissions process into a learning experience, which is valuable especially to those who could not afford to attend foundation courses (propadeutika).

Public Lecture 1: Gender discrimination in French Art schools

Fabienne Dumont, École Européenne Supérieure d’Art de Bretagne EESAB, Quimper

„Gender Discrimination in French Art Schools“
Lecture 1 by Fabienne Dumont, 27.2., at HEAD.

The first evening lecture by Fabienne Dumont, art historian, art critique, and professor for contemporary art at the “école européenne supérieure d’art de Bretagne“ focused on the marginalization of women in art schools by comparing the under-representation of women in the French art world of the 1970s and of today. She analysed gender inequality in the 1970s by looking at the small percentage of women artists represented in art exhibitions, museums and magazines. She blamed the lack of female professors and directors at Art French schools for female art students‘ internalization of limitations. Nowadays, 60% of all art students in France and a third of all art school teachers and directors are female, and the percentage of women artists in exhibitions and at biennales in France has risen to 30%. However, the fact that the number has stagnated indicates that the glass ceiling is still intact.

Speaking of her work at an art school in a marginal region of France, where many students have a limited educational background and few of them go on to pursue professional artistic careers, Dumont suggested that the curriculum should be less narrowly oriented towards the contemporary art world. More open interactive educational formats need to be integrated, without, however, privileging the attendance of male students, who are still treated as the sole future breadwinners. Dumont doubted that the charter against discrimination, currently being developed at French Art schools (mostly in response to increasing numbers of students claims of sexism and sexual harassment), will bring much change. Given that a similar policy is already in place, Dumont proposed that anti-discriminatory laws should be accompanied by the creation of “listening spaces,” which include teaching staff and administrators. The fact that female students do not receive the best marks and are less encouraged to pursue careers as professional artists, could be rectified by augmenting the numbers of female art teachers to at least 40%. “Because even if these women are not feminists, the perception of the possibility of being female artist would become more widespread amongst students.” Dumont references the “Feminist Art Program” a collective of female art students and teachers in California who rejected the idea of male genius and worked towards developing artistic criteria that legitimated “practices related to the experiences of women.” In conclusion, however, Dumont held that these women-only initiatives have lost their appeal and cannot be replicated today, but that “we obviously need programs that teach gender, postcolonial or class in the curriculum, to legitimize aspirations for greater social justice.”

GenderDiscriminationInFrenchArtSchools_FabienneDumont

Discussion: As Dumont did not focus much on the practical implementation of her suggestions, for example, the idea of creating a “listening space,” she was asked to explain how exactly spaces of reflection could be fostered within today’s art schools. Dumont’s personal teaching practice of forming small groups of students interested in questions of gendered inequality and empowering them by broadening their horizon, did not seem to yield the basis for a broader conversation about how to foster critical discussions on norms and inequalities across schools. Dumont’s main suggestion of fighting gender discrimination by raising the number of “women” art professors was critiqued on the grounds that it reifies “women” as a seemingly static category, and did not account for intersecting categories such as race or class. Even if “counting men and women” seemed to be the easiest way to address the complexities of gender imbalances, such an approach was problematic if it reproduced a binary construction of gender and stabilized the unmarked position of white women. Rather than reifying a male-female division and thus rendering invisible non-normative gender identifications, it might be more fruitful, discussants argued, to raise the number of teachers who inhabit a variety of “minoritized positions”.

Public Lecture 2: Decolonising Art and Education through Creative Practice

Evan Ifekoya & Rudy Loewe, interdisciplinary visual and performance artists, London

„Decolonising Art and Education through Creative Practice“
Lecture 2 by Rudy Loewe and Evan Ifekoya, 27.2. at HEAD.

The twin-presentations by Evan Ifekoya and Rudy Loewe focused on their individual work and facilitation practices as artist-activists in London, exploring anti-racist and anti-sexist methodologies by “utilising archives, contemporary culture and lived experience.” Both Ifekoya and Loewe identify as non-binary persons and prefer the gender-neutral pronoun “they” (hence also: their, them) in lieu of he or she. Both are committed to working with and making visible the (archived) works of people of colour. And both are generous in sharing their projects and ideas online, even if “this might not be a good business plan.” They like the idea of being a resource to all – while being aware, however, that the internet is not accessible to everyone either.

Evan Ifekoya’s aim of decolonising artistic practice began with re-naming themselves: Rather than using the British surname of their Nigerian father, Evan took on their mother’s maiden name Ifekoya, a name that existed prior to the insertion of British names and colonial naming practices in West Africa.

Ifekoya is part of QTIPOC, a London-based group of Queer, Trans* and Intersex People Of Colour. QTIPOC meets on a monthly basis to foster collective forms of creativity and make visible the works and histories QTIPOC. http://qtipoccollectivecreativity.tumblr.com Their homepage says: “As a collective of QTPOC artists who have all in some way felt failed by the art academy and our formal educations, this project offers up a space to critically reflect on those experiences and examine the gaps and absences in art institutions.“

Ifekoya teaches art to children who have been excluded from “normal” schools. She also takes working-class youth and children into art galleries and museums. In a school workshop taught at the Tate Modern in 2013, Ifekoya made their own body into an art project. Incited by one of the pupils who questioned Ifekoya’s sex/gender identity, Ifekoya invited all pupils to ask the visitors of the Tate, to comment on Ifekoya’s body and identity. The responses were written on stickers and posted on Ifekoya’s body. The process amounted to a way of learning about the relativeness of categorization, while also putting at center-stage a black, gender-queer body within a colonial museum space. (The Tate was built on money gained during the transatlantic slave trade.)

“Artfunshack” Ifekoya’s colourful, weekly online art show, draws on pop culture images and uses tropes of childhood such as the legendary U.S. TV program “Sesame Street” to address, in particular, children of colour. In one video, for instance, they are making bounty balls, in reference to the Bounty Bar – a popular chocolate bar in the U.K. which consists of coconut covered in chocolate. A ‘bounty bar‘ or ‘coconut‘ is also a derogatory term for a person of colour who does not conform to internalised stereotypical ideas about how a person of African or Asian decent is supposed to behave, and is thus criticised for being “white on the inside and brown on the outside,” Ifekoya’s “compulsory visibility” as black and gender-queer body, emerges as an important starting point for their playful work around questions of identity and authenticity and their search for utopian spaces.

Rudy Loewe is a visual artist, educator and storyteller who works primarily in comic and zine format. Lead by an autobiographical focus, Loewe addresses issues concerning gender, race, sexuality, trauma, and mental health.

Loewe’s prints and comics speak about “bad therapy” and about trying to access mental health services in London. They represent traumatic experiences of domestic violence and abuse through a child’s eyes , and they evoke sudden falls and accidents as pivotal moments in our lives. The latter comic, on “free falling,” explores the tension between being in a constant state of flux and fall, while having to be tough and compelled to compartmentalize psychological things in order to survive economically and emotionally. Loewe’s take on “free falling” ties in with an interest in how everyday uncertainties and physical trauma are passed down to us generation for generation, from mothers to daughters. Loewe’s focus on the impact of (mental) health issues on the lives of people of colour draws attention to the bodily impact of structural discrimination.

Trying to escape the black-white logic, Loewe “brown washes” their work. Instead of working in black and white, Loewe uses brown paper and brown colours, in order to make brown people central to their stories. As educator and facilitator, Loewe often works in public libraries with working class black and brown kids. Loewe seeks to cultivate a space in which children, who may not consider their experiences important, begin to explore their own narratives. Conversations that touch on gendered and bodily experiences are part of these sessions. While queerness and sexuality is only addressed indirectly, many conversations with black boys revolve around being “stopped and searched” by the police.

Finally, Loewe talks about their interest in making archives accessible. Loewe was commissioned to make a comic on the late black modernist artist Claude McKay, a radical queer socialist who had some fame in the 1920s but was then largely forgotten again. By highlighting and reinvigorating different parts of McKay’s subjectivity, Loewe seeks to work against the marginalization of black artists and muses who “disappear” again, as they do not seem to be part of a larger tradition or not known to young artists of colour.

Discussion: Though Loewe and Ifekoya work mostly with kids and youth outside higher art schools, their intersectional practices could be considered a response to Dumont’s paper. While Dumont’s quest to contest gender discrimination at art schools, centers around the figure of the “woman” professor, in Loewe’s and Ifekoya’s teaching practice, gender is inextricably intertwined with conversations about race and sexuality. These issues are brought into conversations by using their own bodies to interrupt ideas of what constitutes the sexual and gender identity of a black/racialized person and by prompting pupils and arts teachers to rethink preconceived notions of masculinity and femininity.

The question, however, arises to what extent they can protect themselves from the unwanted attention their openness might trigger. Making their bodies and their traumatic experiences the site for instigating conversations on mental health and on what it means “be othered,” requires certain measures of self-protection. Their work implies a weaving in and out of art, academia and community spaces and requires a constant contending with the position of being simultaneously an insider and an outsider.

Public Displays of Accountability: Addressing Race in the Arts / Curriculum

Workshop by Evan Ifekoya and Rudy Loewe

Saturday 28^th February, 9.00 at HEAD:

The workshop elaborated on the issues Rudy Loewe and Evan Ifekoya raised in their lecture the previous evening. Besides introducing contemporary arts projects that challenge institutional frameworks (the links to these projects are listed in their Power Point Presentation: PublicDisplaysOfAccountability_Loewe_Ifekoya), the focus was on practical tools for addressing race and racism and on decolonizing art school teaching practices. Drawing on African-American feminist scholars and activists bell hooks and Audre Lorde, Loewe and Ifekoya advocated “the dismantling of the master house” in the art school curriculum, and hence the undermining of the “whiteness and hetero-patriarchy” of the curriculum. This implies not only engaging black teachers and professors, but teaching the writings of postcolonial scholars as part and parcel of the art school curriculum.

In terms of developing a radical pedagogy, Loewe and Ifekoya themselves have been inspired by texts such as Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and bell hooks’ books “Teaching Community: A Pedgagy of Hope” and “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.” hooks thinks through “how we are as bodies” in the learning/teaching environment and focuses specifically on the ways in which we navigate the spaces we enter as learner and/or and facilitators.

The core theme of the session was accountability. “By accountability we are referring to the process by which actions and language can be questioned in a non confrontational way.” While the workshop participants did not raise any issues that might need to be addressed, Loewe and Ifekoya tested our capacity to have non-confrontational conversations by speaking about their unease upon entering the HEAD and being confronted with two posters that offended them. One of the posters advertised an art exhibition entitled Utopia/Ethiopia. Yet, none of the artists listed seemed to be of Ethiopian background or to work on Ethiopian art. Rather the poster featured a grey-haired white man, thus reproducing the white male gaze that tends to “other” subject positions such as the ones inhabited by Ifekoya or Loewe. The other poster, in black and white, featured the sentence “JE SUIS CHARLIE.” Although a comic artist herself, Loewe could not identify with the practices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. In fact Loewe felt hurt by the magazine’s “very violent, racist, sexist and islamophobic content” contributed to “violence against people of colour on the street.” Loewe’s and Ifekoya’s statements triggered a discussion about the degree to which it is possible to critique the position of Charlie Hebdo subsequent to the attacks in Paris within the context of a Swiss French art school. It was observed that counter-discourses and positionings, such as “Je suis Ahmed” (Ahmed, was one of the policemen killed in the event) had only little exposure at the HEAD and appeared to be almost unspeakable.

In the final section participants were invited to give a visual response to the session by producing their own zine, addressing the question: What would an accountability process look like?

By Serena O. Dankwa

Work in progress: Co-research projects of Art.School.Differences at the 3^rd colloquium

The Saturday afternoon of this 3^rd colloquium was fully dedicated to the seven Art.School.Differences co-research projects. Carmen Mörsch, who supervised the working session, emphasized a joint, collective and friendly, but critical questioning by the audience of each group’s presentation of their work in progress. This, on one hand, to give space to the potential arising out of the multitude of different experiences, disciplinary and working perspectives present at the colloquium, as well as, on the other, to allow questions and uncertainties of each research-group to emerge and to be addressed.

Co-Researchers discussing their Art.School.Differences Projects, 28.2., at HEAD.

The group from Art Education at ZHdK led by Lorenz Bachofner, Laura Ferrara, Julia Kuster and Nora Schiedt focuses on the important, but contradictory role of «one’s own artistic / creative expression» in (higher) art education. On one hand, this idea is strongly related to problematic notions of talent or the genius (as well as the creatio ex nihilo). On the other, it reflects the widespread conviction that the artistic expression can be taught and learned in school. Drawing on their experience at the ZHdK, they explain that this claim was and still is not met within their own education, and go on arguing that the concept of the ‹singularity› tends to be a «Leerformel» in the sense of Ernst Topitsch. Furthermore, their research project mirrors their personal interest to break the «circle of reproduction» as they themselves are coming from high school and returning there after their studies as teachers. Methodologically, they aim at looking at the curricula («Lehrpläne») of three different high schools in the canton of Zurich and to conduct in-depth interviews with teachers while the latter are assessing their pupils’ artistic works. Possible research questions are the following: What effects do these curricula have on the individual teachers? How do teachers deal with it in their classes? How do they value work? And how do they speak about a student’s work while assessing it?

The research group from Fine Arts at ZHdK led by Romy Rüegger and Yvonne Wilhelm is interested in the question of what happens during the mentoring of a student by a teacher. These mentoring situations are of overall importance within fine arts education as working processes are individualized and have to be adapted to the interaction between teachers and students. Although this format opens up spaces for transgression and bears the overcoming of gridlocked structures inherent to teaching, it entails important moments of normativity as well as inclusion and exclusion. The research wants to address these by questioning the importance given to certain artistic values or references and canons. It also inquires the perspectives and positions taken on by speakers and how they reflect privileges. They started to collect and document research materials on an internal blog with students. To be able to overcome the challenge of their institutional positions as teachers, Romy Rüegger and Yvonne Wilhelm chose to stage a mentoring situation with students from the MA Fine Arts and from BA Kunst & Medien program and alumni at ZHdK (Onur Akyol, Martina Baldinger, Angelo Brem, Berivan Güngör, Bleta Jahaj, Patrick Kull, Rina von Burg). Some of them will take on the respective role as students and teachers while being observed by the others. Their experience and observations will be compared to the ones by the teachers themselves. The goal is to think of and establish other kinds of mentoring formats without them having to be new. While presenting their project, Romy Rüegger and Yvonne Wilhelm recalled the students group to first have been surprised about the idea of questioning the mentoring process. This suggests a strong expectation from the students that their mentors should define this situation instead of themselves. The example very well illustrates how the hierarchy of the teacher – student at art school is internalized and is reinforced in every day practice of teaching and learning.

Sarah Owen with Tingshan Cavelti and Allaina Venema from the design department at ZHdK, are researching the representations of the «ideal designer» in the educational system as well as «on the market»: Preferred are white, male, heterosexual and preferably Swiss, if not then Dutch or British subjectivities. Although abstract criteria are set up during the admission process, ideal types of designers are very prevalent. Among others, there is the maverick («Abenteurer»), lonesome wolf type, opposed to the bureaucratic designer («Gestaltungsbürokrat») type. Although both constructed ideal types differ in their narrative as well as visual representation, they nevertheless have something in common, as was pointed out in the discussion: both know the specific ‹traditions› of the design field very well: Even the one who aims to break the rules, has to know the rules beforehand. The group aims to work on questions that are interwoven with design education in Switzerland and beyond, also looking into the system of design education that is evaluated by the SERI (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation) and peer reviewed every 5 years. Leading questions are: What does a designer need to know – and need to learn in order to be successful? The methodology consists in recording events and situations from everyday teaching and learning practices in which these or diverging representations of the «ideal designer» are articulated and reproduced, but also subverted. Their aim lies in constructing a sort of «counter-mythical person» in order to disrupt the relationship between a piece of work and its author.

Daniel Zea with Hyunji Lee and Andrea Nucamendi from HEAD-Genève have put their research focus on inequalities that foreign students encounter during their studies at the HEAD-Genève. They chose to especially emphasize non-European communities, as they seem to be particularly exposed. So far, they have identified a range of realms that impact equity and which they would like to touch on more in depth: Money, papers, language, artistic and conceptual references, discrimination and lack of technical lessons. As their group is composed of two foreign art students, one from Mexico and one from Korea, and is led by a Colombian teacher, their idea is to «get in contact with the subject of study, by the subjects being studied». They want to document all these inequities in video, photographs and sound recordings, in order to create a collection of material that forms an «artistic case-study» talking to students as well as teachers. Thereby, the emphasis is on how inequalities make students feel. As a final result, the group imagines an artistic piece that can have the form of a film, or an installation, or even a performance.

Martine Anderfuhren, Patricio André, Claire Bonnet, Fabio Fernandes Da Cruz and Ivan Gulizia from visual communication at HEAD-Genève are planning a series of events that, as a result, include the Otherness of students – the motto being «what you are reinforces your creativity». As a final result, their Otherness should be included into their course work and rendered productive on an overall basis instead of hampering. The planned events will at first be conducted within their own department of visual communication, such as an organizing of shared meals or quiz etc. These will enable exchanging on different professional developments, and on cultural and technical knowledge. In order for these exchanges to be fruitful, they propose to first make mini-events to create «godparent» relationships among all the students and teachers. The first of these mini-events has been planned in detail and will be announced by a «fire alarm». As they argue, it will allow for their project to start within a humoristic ambiance, as well as to have the entire school present on the same spot and to initiate the godparent relationships. However, they will keep the secret on further events and just give the advice to people that they should keep in touch with their godparents and godchildren, suggesting its helpfulness for the future. The first event is to take place mid of may.

Patrik Dasen with Soojin Lee from HEM Genève are leading a research amongst non-European students of the school with the aim of highlighting their socio-cultural and socio-economic background and current situation of studying in Geneva. This project, thus, evaluates both the music students potential needs in terms of a better integration in the general life of the institution and the potential socio-cultural added value each foreign student is, or can be, for the institution. In terms of methodology, the group first works on the a priori representation of music and students among students as well as reflected by the school, questioning Western traditional music and its symbolic power, as well as the economical, social and cultural students’ background, etc. They will conduct semi-directive interviews, starting with a few preliminary interviews with informants to establish the interview guideline. Second, they will also look into the effects of the relationship between interviewers and interviewees to reflect power relations inherent to the interview situation.

The team of Victor Cordero, Bernardo Di Marco and Micha Seidenberg works on the theoretical knowledge of music from the perspective of non-European students. Having an eliminatory function if not passed within the admissions’ process, the test of musical theory has exclusionary effects for specific student groups. It is actually highly based on competences acquired before the entry at the high school. Being given that the HEM wishes to integrate international students and thus students with a quite different knowledge from those built by the school of musical theory in Europe, a conflict of interest emerges that is the object of the research lead by this group. In order to prepare interviews with students and teachers, they are looking into the statistics made by the school for the admissions process, on, for example, the nationalities of the candidates – accepted and non-accepted – and other information gathered every year by the HEM. They also already have contacted students from non-European countries in order to exchange with them to know more about their relation to theory of music and the way it is taught at the HEM.

By Philippe Saner, Pauline Vessely, and Sophie Vögele

Donnerstag, 12UTC%3 12. März 2015

27./28. Feb. 2015: De-Privileging Art School

Colloquium no. 3

De-Privileging Art School: antisexist and antiracist methods, feminist, queer and postcolonial perspectives on knowledge production

Friday 27^th and Saturday 28^th February 2015
Haute école d’art et de design, HEAD – Geneva, Auditoire, Boulevard James Fazy 15, 1201 Geneva

Friday 27 February 2015, 6 pm – 8.15 pm, followed by a drink

The public twin-lecture held on Friday evening focuses on practices of (de-)privileging art schools and sheds light on research done on privilege and elitism from a critical feminist and postcolonial perspective.

Lecture 1: Fabienne Dumont (École Européenne Supérieure d’Art de Bretagne EESAB, Quimper)
Gender discrimination in French Art schools
This lecture will evoke the status of gender discrimination in art schools in France, from a few historical and current figures, accompanied by more qualitative analysis of the situation. This reflection will be accompanied by educational examples drawn from feminist history, especially the establishment of the Feminist Art Program in California, in order to invent solutions to fight against these discriminations.

Lecture 2: Evan Ifekoya & Rudy Loewe (performer, London)
Decolonising Art and Education through creative practice
Interdisciplinary artists Evan Ifekoya and Rudy Loewe will present individually on their artistic and facilitation practices, exploring anti racist and anti sexist methods utilising archives, contemporary culture and lived experience.

Samstag 28 February 9 am:

Workshop by Evan Ifekoya & Rudy Loewe
Public Displays of Accountability: Addressing Race in the Arts/curriculum
A zine making workshop and presentation exploring various decolonial arts/curriculum projects and accountability processes.

Round Table Moderators:
Lysianne Léchot, Professor, Dean of Studies, HEAD – Genève
Carmen Mörsch, Director, Institute of Art Education, ZHdK

Mittwoch, 25UTC%3 25. Februar 2015

18.03.2015: öffentlicher Vortrag von Jackie McManus

Jackie McManus (London)

Nachdem Jackie McManus (University of the Arts London) ihren Abendvortrag für das zweite Kolloquium von Art.School.Differences leider kurzfristig absagen musste, laden wir die interessierte Öffentlichkeit am Mittwoch, den 18. März 2015 ab 18.00 Uhr zu ihrem öffentlichen Abendvortrag mit folgendem Titel ein:

Hopes and Fears for Art: policy and practice in widening participation in art and design higher education in the UK
In spite of considerable efforts to increase the social and ethnic diversity of higher education
students in the UK, the academy continues to be dominated by white middle class students and
is highly stratified by institution and subject area. This paper discusses the policy and practice of
the project of widening participation in the UK focusing on art and design education. It draws on
research undertaken with working class young people about their choice of degree subject, and
on a national research project examining the admissions process in art schools in the UK. Finally,
it looks at art and design widening participation programmes in London with some of the city’s
poorest young people, and considers the future of this work in the context of the marketisation of
higher education.

Jackie McManus, die auch Mitglied des wissenschaftlichen Beirates von Art.School.Differences ist, geht in ihrem Referat der Frage nach den institutionellen Spielräumen einer Demokratisierung der Kunsthochschulen in Grossbritannien nach. Eingeleitet wird der Abend durch eine kurze Information über Ziele und Inhalte von Art.School.Differences durch das Projektteam.

Die Veranstaltung findet im Hörsaal 1 im Toni-Areal der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste statt.

Vortrag_ASD_McManus_März 2015

Donnerstag, 22UTC%3 22. Januar 2015

Bildungs- und Kunstsoziologie: Das zweite Kolloquium von Art.School.Differences am 28. und 29. November 2014 an der ZHdK

Im Zentrum des 2. Kolloquiums von Art.School.Differences standen soziologische Forschungskonzepte. Die beiden öffentlichen Vorträge wurden von Ulf Wuggenig (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg) und Olivier Moeschler (Université de Lausanne) gehalten. Jackie McManus musste ihren Vortrag zu «Hopes and Fears for Art: policy and practice in widening participation in art and design higher education in the UK» leider sehr kurzfristig absagen. Umso erfreulicher war es, dass sich Ulf Wuggenig kurzerhand bereit erklärte, neben seinem Schulungs-Workshop am Samstagvormittag auch einen öffentlichen Abendvortrag am Freitag zu halten. Wir werden sobald als möglich einen neuen Termin für den Vortrag von Jackie McManus festlegen.

In seinem Vortrag unter dem Titel «Sociological Frames of References for Decision-Making in Art Schools. Value systems and their social embeddings from the perspectives of field theory, pragmatist sociology and the art worlds approach» verglich Ulf Wuggenig mehrere Theorieansätze, die in der zeitgenössischen Kunstsoziologie von übergeordneter Relevanz sind: Zum einen die Feldtheorie Pierre Bourdieus und die Systemtheorie Luhmanns, andererseits aber auch die pragmatische Soziologie der Rechtfertigungsordnungen von Luc Boltanski und Eve Chiapello, welche auf die Forschung von Boltanski und Laurent Thévenot aufbaut, sowie den Art worlds-Ansatz von Howard Becker. Die Folien zum Vortrag von Ulf Wuggenig finden sie hier.

Olivier Moeschler präsentierte in seinem Vortrag «What’s the Difference? Cultural Democratization and the Social Determinants of Artistic Practices: Theoretical Considerations and a Swiss Case Study» einige Resultate seiner Studie zu Absolvent_innen der Westschweizer Theaterhochschule (gemeinsam verfasst mit Valérie Rolle). Am Begriff des «créacteur» (zusammengesetzt aus den französischen Begriffen créateur – Schöpfer und acteur – Schauspieler) exemplifizierte Moeschler sowohl die künstlerischen, als auch unternehmerischen Anforderungen, die heutzutage an Kunsthochschulstudierende gestellt werden. Dabei zeigte sich auch, wie Projekte mit dem Ziel der Förderung von «Diversität» ungewollt bestehende Ungleichheitsstrukturen im Zugang zu einer Hochschule verfestigen können. Diese Feststellung trifft sich auch elementar mit den zentralen Forschungsinteressen von Art.School.Differences. (Siehe auch die Rezension der Studie von Marie Buscatto.)

Im Rahmen des Schulungs-Workshops vom Samstagvormittag verdeutlichte Ulf Wuggenig ausführlich die Relevanz und Bedeutung von Bourdieus Theorie der Praxis (Feld, Kapital und Habitus) für die Forschung von Art.School.Differences. Anhand der dualen Struktur im Feld der kulturellen Produktion – einem autonomen Subfeld der eingeschränkten Produktion einerseits sowie einem heteronomen Subfeld der Massenproduktion – sowie der Verortung der kulturellen Praktiken im sozialen Raum (z.B. des Museumsbesuchs) konnten einige grundlegende Funktionsweisen und Ausschlussmechanismen des Feldes der zeitgenössischen bildenden Kunst diskutiert werden.

Der Samstagnachmittag war der Weiterentwicklung und Diskussion der Forschungsentwürfe der Ko-Forschungsgruppen mit dem Team von Art.School.Differences sowie dem internationalen Beirat gewidmet. Die Ko-Forschenden brachten durch ihre Projekte verschiedene Sichtweisen ein, wie «Diversität» in den unterschiedlichen Bereichen und Ebenen der Kunsthochschule praxisorientiert be- und hinterfragt werden kann. Die Präsentationen und anschliessenden Gesprächsrunden boten Anlass zu lebhaften Diskussionen über die Forschung zu Ungleichheiten und Normativitäten an Kunsthochschulen.

Für das Forschungsteam von Art.School.Differences bot das Kolloquium auch die Gelegenheit zu einem wertvollen fachlichen Austausch mit den Vertreter_innen des International Advisory Board von Art.School.Differences. So brachte etwa Melissa Steyn (Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) die Frage nach der «Demokratisierung» von Bildungsinstitutionen aus der südafrikanischen Perspektive ein, die stark von einer «Afrikanisierung», d.h. einem Privilegienabbau der weissen Minderheit geprägt ist. Trotzdem kontrolliere diese aber nach wie vor die meisten ökonomischen Ressourcen wie auch einflussreiche Positionen in Wissenschaft und Kultur. Ruth Sonderegger (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) stellte in ihrem Statement die Frage, inwiefern Verständnisse von Kunst und Ästhetik in die Aufnahmeverfahren von Kunsthochschulen eingebracht werden könnten, die keinen stark eurozentristischen Bias aufweisen. Als konkreten Vorschlag stellte sie die Involvierung von Künstler_innen und Theoretiker_innen mit anderen kulturellen Hintergründen in die Aufnahmekommissionen von europäischen Kunsthochschulen in den Raum. Marie Buscatto (Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne) schliesslich machte auf die vergeschlechtlichten Arbeitsbedingungen von Studierenden an Kunsthochschulen aufmerksam, die nicht nur die Aufnahmeverfahren, sondern auch die Unterrichtsformate, die Organisation der Curricula sowie informelle Beziehungen zwischen Studierenden und verschiedenen Akteur_innen innerhalb und ausserhalb der Hochschule betreffen. Darüber hinaus verwies sie auf die Bedeutung der familiären, schulischen und ausserschulischen Vorbildungsangebote, ohne die die Aufnahme eines Kunst- oder Musikstudiums kaum zu bewältigen sei, durch welche aber auch idealisierte und vergeschlechtliche Rollenbilder «der Künstler_in» reproduziert würden.

Dora Borer und Philippe Saner, Dezember 2014

Freitag, 12UTC%3 12. Dezember 2014

Öffentliche Abendvorträge anlässlich des 2. Kolloquiums am 28. November in Zürich

Nach dem Start der Ko-Forschung im Rahmen des 1. Kolloquiums am 4. Oktober 2014 an der Haute école de musique de Genève (HEM) wird die Ko-Forschung am Wochenende des 28. und 29. Novembers an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) fortgesetzt. Als Gäste und Expert_innen werden anlässlich dieses Kolloquiums die Mitglieder des internationalen Beirates von Art.School.Differences anwesend sein. Als Themen stehen dabei insbesondere die Kunst- und Bildungssoziologie auf dem Programm.

Anlässlich dieses zweiten Kolloquiums von Art.School.Differences möchten wir interessierte Gäste am Freitag, den 28. November ab 18.00 Uhr zu zwei öffentlichen Abendvorträgen im Hörsaal 1 des Toni-Areals einladen. Die beiden Referent_innen, Jackie McManus von der University of the Arts London sowie Olivier Moeschler von der Universität Lausanne, gehen der Frage nach den institutionellen Spielräumen einer Demokratisierung der Kunsthochschulen und der Kulturpolitik allgemein in Grossbritannien und der Schweiz nach.

Anschliessend an die Veranstaltung sind alle Teilnehmer_innen zum Apéro riche in der Halle vor dem Hörsaal 1 eingeladen.

Weitere Informationen zum Kolloquium finden Sie hier.

Mittwoch, 05UTC%3 5. November 2014

Bericht zum 1. Kolloquium Art.School.Differences, 4.10.2014 an der HEM – Genève

Diversität, Ein- und Ausschlüsse: diese Themen standen im Zentrum des ersten Kolloquiums von Art.School.Differences am 4. Oktober 2014 in Genf. Als Auftakttreffen für die Ko-Forschenden bot es Gelegenheit, sich vertieft mit dem Projekt Art.School.Differences wie auch mit Beispielen aus Holland und Österreich auseinander zu setzen.

Vielfalt zeigte sich bereits an den Lebensläufen der 26 Teilnehmer_innen: viele haben internationale familiäre Bezüge, kulturelles Dazwischensein und Spannungsfelder in verschiedenen Facetten erlebt. Die Ausschreibung von ASD traf auf zentrale Anliegen, die den Ko-Forschenden aus ihrer Arbeitserfahrung bedeutsam geworden waren. Ihre Projekte stellen sich aus verschiedenen Disziplinen den Fragen um Zuschreibungen und normativen Setzungen, die „Andere“ und das „Andere“ ausgrenzen und blinde Flecken der Beurteilung erzeugen. Sie scheinen auf bei Begriffen von ‚Exzellenz‘, ‚Genie‘, Begabung‘ oder bei der Einschätzung des beruflichen Rüstzeugs für die Ausbildung an Kunsthochschulen.

Diversität eröffnet Räume, wo vielfältige Seinsweisen Platz haben, Begabungen und Werke sich entfalten können. Eine Weite, die auf den ersten Blick unendlich scheint und auf den zweiten bald an Grenzen stösst, wo das Institutionelle und das Eigene ‚Anderes‘ werten, akzeptieren oder ausschliessen. Missbräuchliche Möglichkeiten mit Diversität zu handeln scheinen auf, wenn sie gezielt eingesetzt wird, um das ‚Eigene‘ zu bereichern oder aus ihr zu selektionieren zum Zwecke der Exzellenz.

Die Forschungsergebnisse von Art.School.Differences zusammen mit den Ko-Forschungsprojekten und Beiträgen der Beiräte sollen ein Mosaik an Wissen und Erfahrungen schaffen und eine Palette an Handlungsmöglichkeiten aufzeigen. Die Stimmung und Diskussionen während dieses ersten Kolloquiums waren ein vielversprechender Auftakt, der zuversichtlich stimmt, dass in den nachfolgenden Kolloquien im Jahr 2015 dieses Ziel eingelöst wird.

Dora Borer, Oktober 2014

Donnerstag, 23UTC%3 23. Oktober 2014

Start der Ko-Forschung: 1. Kolloquium am 4. Oktober an der HEM-Genève

Am Samstag, 4. Oktober 2014, wird mit dem 1. Kolloquium an der Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève die Ko-Forschung im Rahmen von Art.School.Differences lanciert.

Dieser erste Austausch zwischen dem Projektteam von Art.School.Differences und den ko-forschenden Lehrenden und Studierenden dient in erster Linie dem gegenseitigen Kennenlernen sowie der Vorstellung und Diskussion erster Projektideen. Als Gäste und Expert_innen zu diesem Kolloquium eingeladen sind neben Carmen Mörsch als Supervisorin von Art.School.Differences Ruth Sonderegger und Günay Özayli von der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien sowie Nana Adusei-Poku und Eva Visser von der Willem de Kooning Academie der Hogeschool Rotterdam.

Während Carmen Mörsch das Konzept und den Ablauf der Ko-Forschung erläutern wird, werden unsere Gäste aus Wien und Rotterdam ihre eigenen Projekte in Form von kurzen Inputs vorstellen. Für den Nachmittag stehen Textdiskussionen sowie die gemeinsame Sichtung und Diskussion der ersten Projektideen auf dem Programm.

Mittwoch, 01UTC%3 1. Oktober 2014

Blog

Deep Diversity in Institutionen: Ein steiniger Weg

Colloquium no. 5; Friday 3rd July 2015, 18.00 at HEAD – Genève

Colloquium no. 4 Friday 24th April 2015, 18.00 at ZHdK

Jackie McManus (London)

Colloquium no. 4 Friday 24^th April 2015, 18.00 at ZHdK