SYMPOSIUM
ALL SCHOOLS
SHOULD BE ART
SCHOOLS
Program Summary
In 2018, Kaldor Public Art Projects and UNSW Art & Design presented a one-day symposium event for an invited audience of art education professionals, featuring a keynote address by Sir Nicholas Serota CH, Chair of Arts Council England.
Best-known for his transformative directorship of Tate (1988-2017), Serota is an outspoken advocate for art education, and recently launched the Durham Commission for Creativity and Education, designed to explore the benefits of creativity for young people across the UK.
In light of recent debates on standardised testing, the “reboot” of Gonski 2.0 and proposed curriculum reforms in NSW, this event aimed to provide a critical platform for discussion on the importance of art education. Bringing together leading education advocates with practising educators, researchers and artists, the symposium examined the role of cultural organisations, and asked how we can effectively work together to support creative learning, inside and beyond the classroom.
All Schools Should be Art Schools is a slogan coined by British artist Bob & Roberta Smith, and is nothing short of a provocation. Kaldor Public Art Projects and UNSW Art & Design were proud to present a day of stimulating discussion and artist-led activity, in which we used the creative tools at our disposal to galvanise support for art education and generate ideas for teaching.
Sir Nicholas Serota visited Sydney as a guest of the Gordon Darling Foundation.
The event was streamed live on the day. Sir Nicholas Serota's keynote address, along with the full range of presentations and panel discussions, are available to view on the Kaldor Public Art Projects Vimeo channel.
All Schools Should be Art Schools
24 October 2018
UNSW Art & Design, Paddington
participating speakers
Sir Nicholas Serota CH, Arts Council England
Mark Scott AO, NSW Department of Education
Dr Christine Evans, NESA
Dr Karen Maras, UNSW
Meredith Melville-Jones, Bradfield Senior College
Howard Matthew, artist educator
Nick Mitzevich, National Gallery of Australia
Deborah Ely, Bundanon Trust
Tony Albert, artist
Frank Newman, Sydney Opera House
Keynote Speaker
Nicholas Serota gives the keynote lecture at the All Schools Should be Art Schools symposium.
Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota was appointed Chair of Arts Council England in February 2017.
In March 2017, he used the occasion of his first speech as Chair to stress the importance of creativity and the arts in education, and to announce the Durham Commission on Creativity and Education.
The 18-month inquiry, a partnership between Durham University and Arts Council England, will investigate what happens when children experience creative learning in all subjects, including arts and culture, and how this experience can help them develop their full potential and thrive in a changing and competitive world.
Prior to taking on the role as Chair of Arts Council England, Serota was Director of Tate between 1988 and 2017. During this period Tate opened Tate St Ives (1993) and Tate Modern (2000, expanded in 2016), redefining the Millbank building as Tate Britain (2000). The national role of the Gallery was further developed with the creation of the Plus Tate network of 35 institutions across the UK and Northern Ireland. As a curator, his most recent shows at Tate have been those devoted to Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter and the Cut-Outs of Matisse.
Nicholas Serota has been a member of the Visual Arts Advisory Committee of the British Council, a Trustee of the Architecture Foundation and a commissioner on the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. He was a member of the Olympic Delivery Authority which was responsible for building the Olympic Park in East London for 2012. He is a member of the Board of the BBC.
ARTIST RESPONSE
Agatha Gothe-Snape
Agatha Gothe-Snape works at the threshold of visual arts and performance. She has a highly trained and deeply attuned understanding of performance strategies and how they intersect not only with the visual but with the relational and architectural. As a result, her works are singular, embracing the complexity, ambiguity and slippages of both performance and language in an aesthetic style that is questioning, poetic and political. Gothe-Snape has exhibited in major international biennales including the Gwangju Biennale South Korea (2018), 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016), PERFORMA, New York (2015) and the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2014). In 2017, she presented a solo exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. She has exhibited widely in Australia at artist-run spaces, state-funded institutions and museums. Her work is held in major collections across Australia. Gothe-Snape is actively involved in Wrong Solo, a collaborative performance group that she began in 2006 with fellow Sydney artist Brian Fuata. She also has a long-standing collaboration with choreographer and dancer Brooke Stamp, as well as artist Sarah Rodigari and dancer and choreographer Lizzie Thomson.
For this event, Agatha created a text-based drawing in response to the morning session as it unfolded. In the afternoon she asked workshop participants to consider their seminal encounters with art, and reflect upon how such encounters have the capacity to change the way they see the world and others. She is interested in valuing impulses, spontaneous gestures and mistakes, and asked participants to do the same. She also welcomed artist collaborators Brian Fuata, Lizzie Thomson, Nadia Odlum and Lleah Smith as co-facilitators for this event.
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