The pilot course “Artistic Intervention in Educational Contexts”, offers 35 artists of various artistic disciplines the opportunity to professionalize for artistic work in education and social contexts.
“Artistic Interventions in educational contexts” is a Germany-wide program, developed by Prof. Dr. Birgit Mandel, department for Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim in close exchange with practical organizations of artistic education, to support artists who are experienced in extending their arts in social, educational or political contexts. The training is designed to address each practitioner’s specific level of artistic and cultural experience under the main question: How can artistic expertise be effectively paired with cultural education or other social or political projects and their existing pedagogical and systemic dimensions?
The main assumption is, that the arts have specific potential for cultural education processes, because they can enable a diversity of aesthetic experiences beyond everyday perception and offer utopic space for (irritating) new experiences and perspectives. The concept of artistic intervention focuses on the autonomy of the arts, which have an effect precisely because they do not adapt to common working methods and conventions.
Even though arts practitioners make high-value contributions to the field of cultural education, they are often underappreciated as peers in schools and other institutions. A distinguished course and certification can lead to recognition and future collaborations between arts practitioners and stakeholders in the educational field.
With this project, the Mercator foundation, one of the main sponsor for cultural education programs in Germany, concludes its long-standing commitment to cultural education. The development of the certificate course by the University of Hildesheim incorporates the materials on cultural education developed in previous Mercator projects and cooperates with five “art laboratories” for visual arts, literature, music, dance and theatre initiated by Stiftung Mercator, as well as with the federal association “Cultural Agents for Creative Schools”.
An accompanying handbook and a digital learning platform facilitate the transfer of knowledge. In addition, a website will be developed on which the certified artists can present their specific expertise in the future and can be contacted by schools, for example.
After the pilot phase at the University of Hildesheim and the Federal Academy Wolfenbüttel, the course will also be adopted by organizations in other federal states. The Department for Cultural Policy has a long academic expertise in cultural education, cultural mediation, cultural management and cultural policy. It is situated at the Department of Cultural Studies,Aesthetic Communication and the arts at the University of Hildesheim which stands for teaching and research oriented towards artistic and aesthetic processes.
Learn more about the project partners here.