2010
This Conference took place exactly a year after the 2009 Conference, jointly organised by the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan (GI/MMB), Bangalore, and India Foundation for the Arts (IFA). That Conference was titled Contexts, Concepts and Practices in Schools, and it offered deliberations under six panel rubrics, and hands-on experiential reflections through four breakout sessions. A special issue of IFA’s arts magazine ArtConnect has compiled with flair, many of the important presentations of the Conference.
The 2009 GI/MMB–IFA Conference was also conceptualised against the backdrop of the joint GI/MMB–IFA arts pedagogy training project, Kali Kalisu, which has been running in the state of Karnataka with government school teachers since mid-2009. Kali Kalisu has entered its second year, during which the project is working to build capacity for teacher training from within a constituency of teachers that have already internalised a passion for Arts Education. The onward reach of Kali Kalisu primarily aims at enriching education through the arts in non-metropolitan government schools in Karnataka.
The first year of Kali Kalisu has been analysed in a detailed article in the ArtConnect special issue, and was presented at the 2009 Conference through a documentary film, and the participation of Kali Kalisu facilitators and teacher trainees. Kali Kalisu was also presented at the 2nd World Conference on Arts Education, convened by UNESCO and the Republic of Korea, in Seoul in May 2010. The UNESCO Conference was designed to examine progress made in the Roadmap for Arts Education, a document which emerged from the 1st World Conference in 2006. Kali Kalisu was appreciated for being closely aligned with many recommendations from the Roadmap. The 2nd World Conference has articulated clear and concise Developmental Goals for Arts Education, through a document referred to as the Seoul Agenda.
The Seoul Agenda was published in August 2010. It proposes detailed action strategies that fall under, and emerge from, three main goals for Arts Education: raising its accessibility to all; securing high-quality activities and programmes; and resolving social and cultural challenges through it. Related concerns centre on the establishing of arts training on a regular basis for arts educators and artists, to enable good quality Arts Education. The document is available at http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/artseducation. GI/MMB–IFA initiatives have anticipated many of these worthy articulations, and the Conference will give them voice.
The 2010 GI-MMB/IFA Conference will enable the voices from Kali-Kalisu, and beyond, to debate the important links among the fields of arts and culture, development and education -- debates that Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan (GI/MMB), Bangalore, and India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) initiatives have set in motion. Ideas of development can differ widely in a globalising world. In examining these links, the Conference will also allow for the articulation of multiple visions of Arts Education. It will also bring to light, Arts Education interventions on the ground, especially those that have creatively forged and harnessed partnerships among stakeholders.
The 2010 GI-MMB/IFA Conference recognises and celebrates synergies with universal thinking about Arts Education priorities. It will remain faithful to the momentum of Kali-Kalisu, which derives from Arts Education initiatives at grassroots levels in school contexts. It will equally hope to catalyse conversations with broader Indian and international Arts Education activist communities that are engaged in the continual dialogue of global and local realities, ideas, theories and practices.
Aims of the 2010 GI-MMB/IFA Conference:
- Articulating multiple understandings of Arts Education and arts in education
- Consolidating Arts Education as a priority within development discourse
Encouraging cooperation and partnerships that widen the sphere of Arts Education advocacy
Arts Education Conference | Arts, Education and Development (2010)