Supported by the Arts & Culture Trust (Act) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Arts & Culture (a division of Fada), in partnership with The Samro Foundation, the conference will be a proactive, interactive and stimulating experience for all art education delegates.
“We have been workshopping ideas around arts education and arts in education by consulting industry experts, as well as active practitioners in the arts and culture industry, for the past ten months to ensure that the conference speaks to all its delegates,” says conference project manager, Anastasia Pather.
Since the fall of the Rhodes statue in April 2015 and the rise of #RhodesMustFall movements, a nationwide call for transformed and decolonised curricula has risen. In response to this, the conference programme has been designed to ensure that it is accessible, relevant and proactive in its approach towards arts education and arts in education.
“In order to do this, we have also ensured that there is a space for the conversation to take place before the conference on our conference website, Facebook and Twitter pages as well as a space for post-conference engagement in the form of a publication,” says Storm Jade Brown marketing and fundraising coordinator at Act.
This year’s two-day programme is a single stream experience. Delegates, attending the first day of the conference, will see presentations and performances by key experts, practitioners, educators and researchers in arts education. The lineup includes presentations by Donna Kukama, Dr Graham Dampier, Professor David Andrew, Professor Kennedy Chinyowa and Nandie Mnyani. Key issues such as the role of community arts centres, the importance of monitoring and evaluation, African insights and policy will be addressed.
The second day of the conference focuses on arts in education and has a strong focus on arts educators. Ashraf Jamal and Dr Alison Kearney critically examine colonial instruction. Puleng Plessie and Genevieve Louw reject Western educational terminology whilst siblings Thuli and Asher Gamdeze question the way we look at and talk about art. There will also be several conference recaps from organisations such as Assitej and Nepad.
The wide assortment of performative presentations over the two days will explore how culture must be considered in designing inclusive educational programmes. There will also be a selection of workshops curated to offer skills development for educators and emerging creatives.
“We have also taken teachers and educators’ schedules into consideration and have therefore designed the conference programme in such a way that they will be able to attend after school and during breaks,” says Pather. “The recent nationwide protests that the education sector has experienced, have clearly demonstrated the power of the student voice. Therefore, we will be partnering with Drama For Life (DFL) to run The Student Experience.”
This two-day experience will run concurrently with the conference programme and works directly with students to consider barriers of social change and education by investigating what education could look like if different arts and art-based teaching methods are considered. The Drama For Life Theatre Company will power The Student Experience with performances, workshops and dialogues. This experience has specifically been designed for Grade 9 learners and will run daily from 9am to 3pm. For more information, email or click here for the full programme.
