FORUM+ - Volume 30, Issue 3, 2023

In 2023, lifelong learning and professionalization have become an integral part of the vocabulary in higher education. But what form can they take for art school alumni? Bob Selderslaghs researches communities of practice for teaching artists. He uses process drama, a method of teaching and learning drama that is relatively unknown in the Low Countries.

Discussing the forms of research that are relevant in higher art education, we can metaphorically use various means of progression. In that respect, the caterpillar track in particular stands out for Bert Willems. How can the caterpillar track provide insights into the way we look at and think about progress? We end up with the suggestion that the art school is a good environment for artistic researchers as happy, critical, but nonetheless intrusive explorers of reality.

Frederiek Bennema introduces foraging as a strategy for learning and research within higher art education, and as a practice and an attitude focused on ecological thinking, care and dialogue. This article aims to offer insights into foraging and how it helps students navigate the landscape of art education. It further discusses how foraging relates to artistic research and how it can help position artistic research in relation to more established forms of research.

During his research stay in late 2020 on the small Pacific island of Pongso no Tao, Joeri Verbesselt went through an existential crisis about his nascent audiovisual artistry. The crisis confronted him with questions he had not been prepared for during his art education. He also could not have predicted that he would be conducting artistic research so far from home on an island struggling with concrete colonial operations and global capitalism. Inspired by Indigenous scholars and artists, he attempts to uncover how a practice of artistic extractivism can become more grounded.

At the beginning of the belle époque, Belgian education was fully engaged in the first “Schoolstrijd” (school struggle, historical conflict between public and Catholic schools). Under the influence of the liberal civilizing offensive, Belgium built its artistic education into a successful ecosystem. With a research- and practice-oriented approach and an active low-threshold recruitment policy, the conservatories succeeded in getting a broad stratum of the population to develop a passion for music. This article examines the processes that made this boom possible, and at the same time it is a plea for conducting deep fundamental research about our artistic education in the present, past and future.

Yorgos Maraziotis’ artistiek onderzoek Mythical Truths komt voort uit zijn noodzaak om het schoolmodel te bekijken als een pedagogisch en cultureel ecosysteem waarbinnen zijn visie op beeldhouwen en archiveren de sociale diversiteit kan versterken.

In 2045, the world will look very different. Although we cannot predict this future, we can shape it. The question is how to prepare today for higher arts education in the future. How can we imagine multiple futures and reflect on how higher arts education will deal with complexities and uncertainties? Can we map these [un]known futures? And what knowledge, structures, or policies do we need to create a sustainable and desirable future for students and staff in higher arts education institutions in 2045? These questions are the starting point for the Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance FAST45 (Futures Art School Trends 2045). This article gives a concise overview of the project’s objectives and anticipated outcomes. The text concludes with four future scenarios for higher arts education and an invitation for the multiplier event FAST45 Futures [Un]known.