Performa #19 New York, Carmen Mörsch

01–24/11/19

„A School for Creating Humans?“ Bauhaus Education and Aesthetics Revisited

Description
The art school of the 21st Century has to be informed by historical foundations of art education as a contested field in which hegemonic discourses are challenged as well as perpetuated. It is timely that now in its Centennial year, we look at the Bauhaus, seldom critically discussed pedagogical foundations. This panel aims to reflect on and critically access the Bauhaus’ pedagogical approach and current art educational discourses.

What is the historical background for Gropius’s notion of the “human”? Who did he envision liberated through creative forces, understanding material, and recognizing basic laws of visual design? What were his makings of art education on his time? How can we learn, align with and continue to push the boundaries of contemporary art education?

In the spirit of the Bauhaus, this panel consists of thinkers from various disciplines in order to create a multidisciplinary conversation and debate.

Conversation led by Nana Adusei-Poku with Coco Fusco, Carmen Mörsch and Mabel O. Wilson.

Carmen Mörsch is Professor for Art Education at Mainz Academy of Arts, Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany. Her interests lie in re/constructing histories, concepts and practices in art education starting from a queer-feminist and post-colonial/critical race perspective. From 2008 to 2018 she has been Head of the Research Institute for Art Education at the Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland. Between 2003 and 2008 she was assistant professor for material culture education at the at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg. She has been working internationally as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Curatorial Research & Practice at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, USA; Fundacion Museos de la Ciudad Quito, Ecuador; Master Cultural Production, Salzburg University; Camberwell College of Art, MA Curatorial Studies, London; Wits School of the Arts, University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, SA; The School of the Art Institute, Chicago, MA Art Education at the NYU; OOR Gallery, Vancouver. Mörsch has been conducting the PhD programme “Art Education” at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna since 2011. Together with Nora Landkammer, she forms e-a-r (education and arts research) collective. She is a member of the network “Another Roadmap for Arts Education” which unites colleagues who seek to analyse and develop art education collaboratively in an emancipatory and decolonizing perspective.

Credits
A School for Creating Humans is supported by the Performa Commissioning Fund and Goethe-Institut New York.

Web
Performa #19

Location
Performa Hub:
47 Wooster,47 Wooster Street, New York