Session Information
29 SES 08, Approaching Arts Education Research
Paper Session
Contribution
The presenters demonstrate through examples from contemporary art, sustainable (arts) education and artistic research how they have explored ontology, epistemology and ethics in relation to the emotional and 'rational' treatment of animals. Throughout history humans have formed relationships with animals for various, often self-serving, reasons and people continue to misuse animals as partners but also as disposables. Animal studies and work against speciesm add to and partially align with the social movement of disability studies, contemporary civil rights activism, feminism, and environmentalism focused on post-anthropocentrism, and activism for sexual and gender diversity. In this presentation, we explore how research and education might rethink the human - animal relationship and how this would contribute to the move towards more humane and democratic education and society. While animal studies perspective is an important addition to social movements, we argue that the issues should be considered from a nonhuman perspective. Hence, there is a difference between animal studies and other social movements, due to the historical divide between human and animal. The presenters use diverse visual materials from contemporary art, natural history museums, and their personal collections to elaborate on the presented themes as well as to explore how the arts and institutionalized use of animals for human entertainment and education simultaneously advance educational thinking but also, paradoxically, further problematize the educational cause.
Method
Broadly defined, we approach this inquiry through visual methodologies. The presentation participates in anthropocentric humanistic critique. Our inquiry processes generally combine philosophical studies with artistic research. Through produced and existing materials in combination with ontological and epistemological contemplation, the researchers aim to find alternatives for historical and contemporary ways of thinking animal and human relations.
Expected Outcomes
Advance the philosophical, ethical, and pedagogical thinking concerning arts and sustainable education in relation to animals. Identified foci: 1) critical understanding of human - animal relationships; 2) understanding speciesm in relation to other forms of discrimination and injustice; 3) the role of arts and arts education in sustainable ethics, education, research, and institutional practices.
References
Derrida, J. (2008). The Animal That Therefore I Am. New York: Fordham University Press. Garoian, C. & Gaudelius, Y. (2001). Cyborg Pedagogy: Performing Resistance in the Digital Age. Studies in Art Education 42(4), 333-347. Haraway, D. J. (2008). When species meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. jagodzinski, j. (2014) Life in art | art in life: Bioart ethics within the anthropocene. Synnyt/Origins. Special Issue: Bio/Art/Education. January 2015, 13-25. Levinas, E. (2008). Totality and Infnity. An Essay on Exteriority. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, E. (2009). Ethics and Infnity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Wolfe, C. (2003). Animal Rites. American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wolfe, C. (2010). What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Varto, J. (2011). Song of the Earth. Helsinki, Finland: Aalto ARTS Books.
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