Notes on Art Education

Cultural Sustainability, cultural engagement and visual culture plays a big role in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaning making, the real world and audience. It presents a platform for critical self reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship.

It would have been interesting to explore how art making affirms our consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing. How can we develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a citizen of the world, or as a member of none’s national or local community. It is identifying and reflecting that an understanding of one’s world is dependant on knowing how contemporary society communicates its values and beliefs informed by economic, environmental, cultural and political forces. In a world dominated by the triumpth of the image, multi-modal practices and visual culture (Duncum, 2003), being visually literate is fundamental, and having the skills to creatively engage with communicative knowing within the dominant discourse is essential to the active construction of an individual’s values, beliefs and identities.

Source: Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and ContemporaryVisual Art Education 
Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle