Art Matters

For the second year of the Art Matters project, an exchange between students from the Art Faculty of the Yerevan State Pedagogical University (ASPU) and the Art Education Department of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) with 11 students and lecturers from Zurich and Yerevan took place; in Yerevan in the spring of 2019 and in Zurich/Bülach in the late summer of 2019.

During the first meeting in April in Yerevan the participants worked on a teaching concept in four mixed, Swiss-Armenian groups. In the second week, the lessons prepared by the student groups were put into practice: at a primary school in central Yerevan, at a primary school on the outskirts of the city, and at an afternoon art school. Discussions accompanied and condensed the ongoing learning process and revealed different pedagogical and artistic approaches. Special highlights of the stay in Yerevan were the visit to the NCA Henrik Igityan Children’s Art Gallery and excursions to the pre-Christian cult site of Garni (Garni Pagan Temple), to the Geghard Monastery and to the carpet weaving exhibition Megerian Carpet. The discussion of Jacques Rancière’s text Der unwissende Lehrmeister at the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) with Nazareth Karoyan and the Guest of Honour Serob Khachatryan will certainly also be remembered.

The return visit to Zurich took place in September 2019. Together, the colleagues from Zurich and Yerevan once again reflected on the teaching content, and their understanding of pedagogy and of art. In small groups, they prepared their lessons and taught them at the public school KZU Bülach. The ‘self-organized’ exhibition space, Les Complices, in Zurich served as the project venue. Here, people congregated to discuss, prepare their lessons, cook and eat together. Once again, the interpreters played an important role – this time the translation was from Russian into German (with Armenian and English remaining a constant part of the exchange).

In the – now deepened – cooperation of the participants, core questions of contemporary (art) mediation became clear: for example, with regard to translation processes; to learned and traditional self-understandings; to the clarification of concepts; the relationship between framing and the unforeseen; and also with regard to the potential of art as a meeting zone or space for negotiation.

In addition to the very successful lessons in the small groups, we will certainly remember the visits to museums (Rietberg, Kunsthalle, Long Night of the Museums) and the Giswil Performance Festival, accompanied by a swim in the lake there.

In the first year of the Art Matters project, an exchange took place between students from the Art Education department of the Zurich University of the Arts and art students from the University and the Art College of Sukhum/i.

In April 2018, fifteen people from Switzerland (students and lecturers) travelled to the main city of Abkhazia¹ for a two-week stay. In the first week, they visited two training centres for art instruction and teacher training under the guidance of their local colleagues. Together with the students from Sukhum/i they formed four working groups, each of which prepared specific topics and materials for class lessons. In the second week, each of the groups was able to sit in on classes in one of four schools in the city and then take over a class for teaching art. The groups were supported by language students from Sukhum/i who worked as translators.

The work and cooperation of the students was then discussed in daily sessions for joint reflection: all in all, an intensive, friendly cooperation developed. The cross-cultural and cross-lingual coordination, as well as the encounter of different pedagogical traditions, was a challenge in which all the participants learned a great deal.

The second part of the exchange took place in Zurich in September 2018. Here, too, the first week focused on orientation in the local school system (this time also involving museum pedagogy) and on preparing lessons in mixed working groups. In the second week, the students gave individual art lessons to pupils at the Kantonsschule Bülach. According to the participants from Abkhazia, their visit to Zurich had already made a lasting impact on them. During the later evaluation at home, they also discussed which aspects of their own didactic methods were confirmed in the exchange and where they were able to receive new ideas. The same went for the participants from Switzerland: the initial descriptions of ‘academic, technology-oriented teaching in the Caucasus’ versus ‘free promotion of expression and creativity’ in Swiss art teaching should be considered in a much more differentiated way. In the encounter with educators from another cultural area, one’s own self-image is challenged.

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