Every Artist is a Leader: refocusing art pedagogies through the business lens.
Written in January 2019
The Arts Council England, as well as other Arts funding bodies, is encouraging collaboration between the Arts and the business sector. This is evident in the Arts Council’s 2020-‐2030 strategy, which emphasises business innovation, growth, and broadening connections. However, there are few existing models that demonstrate how these partnerships can benefit both parties -‐ and this is most evident concerning alternative art schools. With my working knowledge of the business sector and the Arts, I believe I can create a model (or series of models) that enables partnership stakeholders to collaborate effectively in a creatively and financially sustainable environment.
While contributing to and opening this ongoing discussion my thesis would provide me with an opportunity to investigate different business models that can be tested and applied to the arts space, with education as a cornerstone.
Contemporary research has focused on the plurality of ‘the alternative’, and framing its discourse around peer-‐led, pedagogy as practice, curatorial practices and educational structures since the Educational Turn1. There has also been a development in the ‘STEM to STEAM’ movement, which notes artistic practice as being able to enhance STEM education and to provide opportunities for innovation for practitioners. Both of these areas I intend to build upon during the course of my research.
Research questions
How might dialogic engagement with local businesses reframe artists thinking of art pedagogies and leadership?
How can cross-‐pollination between business and the Arts develop our understanding of success?
Can a sustainable model be created for arts education?
How can the practices and ethos in alternative education be transferred into arts institutes, specifically universities, and vice versa?
The research proposed would contribute to the field of alternative arts education by investigating, through the dialogic, how businesses can expand knowledge of sustainability models and leadership. The theoretical framework for this thesis consists of the ‘infinite conversation’ (Blanchot, M., The Infinite Conversation, 1992), along with ‘the dialogic’ (Freire, P., Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1996) as a form of conversational research. To contextualise the notion of success I will be problematising the ‘hierarchy of needs’ (Maslow, A., A theory of human motivation, 1943). Research into ‘cross pollination’ is two-‐fold: reacting to ‘Cultural Capital’ (Bourdieu, P., Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, 1984) and ‘knowledge mobility’. These function as a methodology from which to critique and approach the overarching research questions.
Dialogues with businesses will form two approaches. First, to investigative research into the sustained art programmes of Siemens and Rolls Royce, who promote arts education to their employees and highlight connections between artists and themselves respectively. Secondly, open a discourse with local businesses in Manchester / Salford through semi-‐structured interviews that builds alliances and investigates the role of self-‐organised learning within their structures.