Marike Hoekstra

The Unknown Territory between Education and Participation: the Relevance of Just Being There

Marike Hoekstra – a freelance artist-educator-researcher, Netherlands

Abstract:

Gastatelier de Vindplaats is an informal shared art studio in a school building in Amsterdam, where children can join on their own terms – free of charge – in their own neighborhood. Gastatelier aims to be a participatory practice because of the way it engages in school routines, family relations and neighborhood activities. It is also, but distinctively, an artistic residency where artists are allowed time and space in socially engaged artistic practice. Theoretically, Gastatelier is based on radical and democratic pedagogical ideals and a critique of art in schools. Practically, Gastatelier is a work in progress, developing a methodology in-action. The artists-in-residence collaborate with the children in their mutual research, adding their diverse artistic research methodologies. This multimodality of both the children’s undirected research activities and the artistic research methods and questions of the residing artists, is the empirical source for developing practical and theoretical models for participatory artistic practice with children. Revisiting Illich’ appeal in 1971 to de-school society, I argue that the focus on accountability in school still leaves little room for children to be able to experience the profound pleasure of the flow of creative process. De-schooling art education requires a reconsideration of children as social agents, closely connected to their community. Negt and Kluge (1980) argue in their seminal text on the public sphere of children that we learn most about the nature of public sphere when we pay attention to the way children’s activities create interruptions in public sphere which might form a threat to the adults’ own interests. Socially engaged practice or artistic connective practice might offer a relevant frame to reconsider the position of children in artistic practice in a way that acknowledges children’s agency.