Encounters with the World through Cultural Schoolbag Workshops for Teacher Students

Abstract

This article raises some questions about encountering the world and subjectivation in art educational practices. Gert Biesta recently criticised the continuing emphasis on expressive and self-centred approaches and pedagogies in art education (2017, 2018). Biesta calls for a world-centred approach to education in general, as well as art education practices that move the focus from oneself to a greater openness towards the world.

In my own art education practice, I attempt to enable this shift from what I see as an emphasis on merely the self to an emphasis on the world—a more sustainable approach to art education. I practise turning students towards the world that explores the possibility for subjectivation: that is, for subjects to come into existence. I frame this teaching strategy as educational dissensus (Skregelid, 2016, 2019a, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c).

This article discusses the notion of world-centredness in relation to the initial stages of a pilot study involving teacher students in The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS) workshops. The TCS workshop Teiporama, by the artist Sandra Norrbin, had an explorative character and was oriented towards process rather than focused on developing skills and an artistic object. At first glance, what happened in the workshops might seem like the expressive approach to art education that Biesta criticizes. However, I still believe the workshop revealed something more. This leads me to asking: How can an art practice having the self, the I, as a point of departure at the same time be a world-centred educational practice?