Abstract
In the current divisive social climate, there has been increased oppression and violence toward individuals from equity-deserving groups. Art and art education can offer powerful pathways and platforms for stimulating empathic, critically conscious, radically imaginative, and felt engagement. The project at the centre of this presentation explores how the practices of contemporary artists working with anti-oppressive and anti-racist participatory methods can contribute to the development of art education approaches that promote shifts in cultural and social attitudes and behaviours. Three racialized contemporary artists working with anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and participatory approaches were invited to engage in residencies in a university art gallery. With each residency, the artists welcomed visitors into the gallery space, inviting them to engage in dialogues and hands-on artistic practices centred on anti-racism and anti-oppression. Through the artists’ hospitality, they created intimate spaces for belonging. Using diverse methods, each artist developed environments to hold space for expressing, learning, feeling, and connecting. This included deep listening, sharing, presenting provocations, stimulating exchanges, and honouring voices. Through such practices, they invited reciprocity, sharing their experiences and practices and opening space for visitors to engage in similar gestures. This required shifts in expectations for visitors’ roles, moving from passive art gallery consumers toward active artistic contributors to anti-racist work. Each artist employed unique approaches to support visitors in these journeys, often incorporating care ethics. Artistic and art education practices that can support transitions in roles, spaces, and orientations required to create artistic environments for belonging, reciprocity, and transformative action is explored.
Presenters
Natasha S. ReidAssistant Professor, Art Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Natalie Le Blanc
Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria, Canada Michelle Wiebe
Assistant Professor, Art Education, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—The Art of Hospitality
KEYWORDS
ARTIST RESIDENCIES, PARTICIPATORY ART, ANTI-RACISM, ANTI-OPPRESSION, GALLERY EDUCATION, CARE ETHICS
