Conferences

IFA has hosted two major arts education conferences to share its far-reaching arts education project called ‘Kali Kalisu’ that brought multi-pronged Arts Education workshops to over 500 teachers in rural and small-town Karnataka, with support from Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore under their Culture & Development Initiative. The first conference titled Arts Education Conference: Contexts, Concepts and Practices in Schools in 2009 was followed by Arts Education Conference: Arts, Education and Development in 2010. Both these conferences were held in the month of December as two-day conferences.

The 2009 conference intended to cover a journey from the world of Arts Education ideas to the multiplicity of practices that define the field on the ground. It took participants through a substantial and meaningful swathe of the Arts Education landscape in the country. The 2010 conference recognised and celebrated synergies with universal thinking about Arts Education priorities. Remaining faithful to the momentum of Kali Kalisu, it catalysed conversations with broader Indian and international Arts Education activist communities that engaged in the continual dialogue of global and local realities, ideas and theories and practices. These two conferences showcased the work of artists in the field of education to a broad audience of artists, educationists, teachers, policy makers, and others involved in arts education. 

The third conference ‘Diversity and Justice’ in 2012, examined a range of philosophical, political and practical topics, from those of equity of access to arts education for the underprivileged, to ways in which arts education can shape the cultural imaginary of a just and equitable society within and outside the space of the classroom.

The Regional Arts Education Conferences was an extension of the far-reaching initiative of ‘Kali-Kalisu’ that has brought multi-pronged arts education workshops to over 400 teachers in rural and small-town Karnataka.