John Johnston on LinkedIn: ‘ Putting Research to Work’ I am delighted to announce my formal… (2024)

‘The greatest expression of what it is to be a human being.’ In these times expression is not enough, so let’s move beyond expression to praxis.. THOUGHT PROVOKING, QUESTIONING and ACTIVE human beings.. Art, and in particular, art education is much more than the sum of its parts. It an invitation to explore what we already know, what we think we know and what we have yet to know or even begin to understand. But let’s be clear , this is not an arts education of the cultural elites, it is thematic and issues based arts education.It is a transgression that compels us to be in the world, working beyond schools, universities, galleries or museums. This us an arts education that demands our attention. It demands that we step out of the comfort of existing knowledge beyond spaces that are controlled.The world has other demands that are fundamentally existential. Issues based arts education doesn’t try to make us human, ir help us express ourselves, it asks us what it MEANS to be human? And once we’ve considered the answer, it then asks what do you do with this privilege? It’s a denands critical thought and thoughtful action. PRAXIS. The arts and education should frighten governments. But we don’t. At least not yet! Governments cut the arts, and we respond by telling them why we are important. Governments place education in a cage and we respond by telling them education Paulo Friere provides us with some tools, direction, and a different vocabulary. But ultimately we need an awakening, to understand how power works, and the arts, culture and education are generative parts of the powerstation that feed the system. We are all part of it , so we should know it!! The cage , the powerstation, whatever metaphor we choose describes a prison with no windows to the outside and no interest on what lies within. In the words of Banksy ,, ‘ keep your money i want change.’

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People, Place & Times‘Its all about connecting’ I am honoured to have been appointed the first UNESCO chair of issues based arts education. Over the next four years our team will work and learn with multiple people, across different countries utilising the arts as a vehicle for social change and peace building. From Belfast to Rabat, from Arnhem to Amsterdam, our places will multiply as our ideas will spread through the incredible work of our students, staff and partners. We draw on the Issues Based approach a pedagogy conceived in the art department at Crofton school in Lewisham SE London. I was sent to the school for my PGCE teaching practice while studying at Goldsmiths. The head of program, Dennis Atkinson thought my politically driven art would connect with the issues based vision of the department. Here I met three incredible artist educators, Christine Britton, Martin Kennedy and Mick Durrant. These teachers had created a method, that enabled students as young as 11 to voice their views on the world they lived in. The issues of the times were the starting point of all investigations. There was no reverence paid to the mysticism of talent, or the fascination of skill - art as a language used to think, question and act creatively. A language of meaning making. The seeds of issues based art education are growing into a forest of ideas and actions at ArtEZ. As the first Chair dedicated to IBAE I am privileged to work with an incredible team of educators, staff and students at our university. I want to take this opportunity to thank the team at the UNESCO Commission in Den Haag, especially Jon Verriet for his support and guidance and secretary general of Netherlands commission Marielies Schelhaas for her warm welcome to the UNESCO family. Furthermore, I acknowledge the support and inspiration of the following; Marloes Verhoeven, who has been a major force behind this initiative, the teaching team at the international masters and Kunsteducatie, the ArtEZ board; Marjolijn Brussaard, Bert Verveld and former board member Maarten Bremer. Thanks also to Jeroen Lutters, who always asks the difficult questions, Maritska Witte, who offered the Chair a home in the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Cormac Burmania head of artisteducator in theatre and MdB who has been a tower of strength and support. Over the course of our mandate the UNESCO team at ArtEZ will develop and change as we respond to the places, people and times we encounter. However, we will always acknowledge the importance of our partners in Belfast, Morocco and Arnhem who now set out with us on this amazing journey.

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‘The End of Art is Peace’ In his poem ‘The Harvest Bow’ Seamus Heaney draws our attention to the ultimate goal of art - which in my understanding is not to end uts existence nor to say that art should be instrumentalised to bring peace! What I think we feel here is how peace can be found in ourselves and the art of how we relate that Self to the world. The words makes me wonder about where then does art begin? Do we find it’s origins in the opposite to peace - conflict and our struggle to understand and give meaning to this life we have? If so is this a complex journey that invites us to understand who we actually are.. our true self. At the international masters artisteducator program at Artez we begin our education by embracing this cmplexity of such questions. And invite our students , educators and partners to join this struggle , which begins by asking who am I? The Self.. We proceed to ask who are you? The Other.. and conclude by asking who are we now and where are we going? In reality these are c propositions rather than questions.. as the answer may never be achieved. However we posit the search in praxis of Self with Other. The result is an unidentifiable word we see below, and possibly from this image a new identity of an artisteducator..(another yet to be determined word) comes into being. This expansion of language is deliberately abstract with the purpose that each student / participant is free to construct their artisteducator identity through praxis. Thus the identity is not concrete or solid, but fluid and responsive, ‘open to the encounter’ of place time and people. . Somewhere in this coming together the Self is compelled to let go of , sometimes small, sometimes large, portions of the Self. And in turn accept parts of the Other that may seem alien and conflicted to their own values.Maybe this is the journey toward the art that Heaney talks of. A peaceful embrace of self with other that only art can express and through this expression we find peace..

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It’s Good Friday 2023,, I’m sitting in a cafe in East Belfast just a mile away from where25 years ago the political and other representations from all sides of the Northern Ireland conflict signed an agreement to signal the beginning of the end of the so-callled troubles. I here today because students from Artez artisteducator programs have been busy since February building meaningful partnerships with local communities in north and west Belfast. This is part of Artez’s ongoing commitment to bring art education out of institution and into the world. We are now in our second year of long term residencies in the city and continue to commit our artisteducator programs to Belfast for the coming years. Our students aim to build on the foundation stones of the peace building project set in place 25 years ago by the signing of the agreement. . It is important to acknowledge the role the arts and culture (including education) can play in perpetuating conflict, it is equally important to acknowledge the role it can play in building peace. Im very aware that the contribution of a small art school from the east if the Netherlands is a mere pebble to add to the building of peace. However, it is one that we carefully sculpt using the tools of ethics, care, humility and creative diplomacy. Maybe - just maybe the political elites could learn from these artisteducators and apply some creative thought to thier actions. While Northern Ireland has many hurdles to overcome to reach a lasting peace and the current political stalemate looks deeply deiressing - as I look out on this city I see a new generation and a regenerated people who will not allow the extremists or even semi extremists to divide us ever againWhile peace agreements are extremely important as they ease the acts of violence and manage the war, they rarely bring lasting peace.In my view we must learn our way out of conflict and the arts provide the most dynamic and explicitly creative vehicle to take us on that journey. So, good luck to all the artists around the world who use thier art to undermine the people and cultures of division. But also the very best of luck to Northern Ireland, and the great people who live, work and strive for peace.There is NO going back only forward ..

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Next Tuesday and Wednesday I join colleagues at Fontys in Tilburg to lead a discussion on the complexities of Socially Engaged Art and the political potentialities when social practices connect to issues based education. The event is part of the Connective Conversations program led by professorship Artistic Connective Practices. Many thanks to Professor Falk Hubner for the invitation. I am looking forward to working with the team at Fontys to form new connections and possible future collaborations with the Artez Site Specific Arts education program.

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Follow the link to a great story of imae alumni Ana Shah. We are very proud of our program and the great students and artisteducators we work with .. https://lnkd.in/gdT-qxfd

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