International Journal of Education Through Art: Volume: 3 - Issue: 3

International Journal of
International Journal of Education through Art | Volume Three Number Three
Volume Three Number Three

ISSN 1743-5234
Education through Art
Volume 3 Number 3 – 2007 3.3
Editorial
169–171
Articles
173–184 Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity,
Education
representation and cultural histories at the Boston MFA
Robin M. Chandler
185–193 ‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry into the representation of
narrative structures in Greek children’s drawings
195–209
211–229
Vasiliki Labitsi
Art Lunch Project: an international collaboration among art teachers
Kinichi Fukumoto
Images and fear: Repressed pictures as a tool for analysing society
through Art
Peeter Linnap
231–241 Mentoring in the creative economy
Tiina Rautkorpi
243–247 Book Reviews

248 Index
intellect Journals | Art & Design

ISSN 1743-5234
33
intellect
9 771743 523002 www.intellectbooks.com
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International Journal of Education through Art

Volume 3 Number 3
A new English-language journal that promotes relationships between the Editor
two disciplines. The journal comprises refereed texts in the form of critical Rachel Mason
essays, articles, exhibition reviews and image-text features. Particular Roehampton University
emphasis is placed on articles and visual materials that critically reflect on Froebel College,
the relationship between education and art. The editorial content pro- Roehampton Lane,
poses original ways of rethinking the status of education and art educa- London, SW15 5PJ, UK
tion, while addressing the role of teaching and learning in either formal or r.mason@roehampton.ac.uk
informal educational contexts – and alongside issues of age, gender and
social background. The adoption of an open and inventive interpretation Associate Editors
of research-based analysis is also a factor in the selection process, as is a
Rita Irwin – Canada
contribution’s capacity to promote and experiment with visual/textual
forms of representing art education activities, issues and research. Debbie Smith-Shank – USA
The journal is interdisciplinary in its reflection of teaching and learning
contexts and also in its representation of artistic approaches and prac-tices. It Reviews Editor
provides a platform to question and evaluate the ways in which art is pro- Nicholas Houghton
duced, disseminated and interpreted across a diverse range of edu-cational Wimbeldon College of Art,
contexts. The contributions consider both formal and informal education University of the Arts,
contexts: policy and practice, pedagogy, research, comparative education, and Merton Hall Rd.,
London, SW19 3QA
transcultural issues are all considered in order to raise debates in these areas.
nhoughton@wimbledon.ac.uk
Editorial Board Editorial Advisory Board
Anabela Moura – Portugal Juan Carlos Arañó – Spain
Analice Dutra Pillar – Brazil Anne Bamford – UK Editorial Assistant
Andrea Kárpáti – Hungary Anna Mae Barbosa – Brazil Teresa Eça
Dorothy Bedford – UK Elliot Eisner – USA Av. San Pedro
Folkert Haanstra – Holland Luis Errazuriz – Chile 114 Routar
Jeong Ae Park – Korea Maria Fulkova – Czech Republic Torredeta 3150 839
Mary Stokrocki – USA Rita Irwin – Canada Portugal
Li Yan Wang – Taiwan Olçay Kirisoglu – Turkey
David Andrew – South Africa Ann Kuo – Taiwan
Toshio Naoe – Japan Diederik Schonau – Netherlands
Yordanka Valkanova – Bulgaria Mary Anne Stankiewicz – USA
Laura Worsley – UK Nick Stanley – UK
Harold Pearse – Canada Brent Wilson – USA
Gladir da Silva Cabral – Brazil
Luis Errazuriz – Chile
Shei-Chau Wang – USA
Vasiliki Labitsi – Greece
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International Journal of Education through Art is published three times per year by
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International Journal of Education through Art, Volume 3 Number 3.

Editorial. English language. doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.169/2. © Intellect Ltd 2007.
Editorial
The papers in this issue address disparate topics. It contains image-texts by
Greek and Japanese art educators that report an international curriculum
development initiative and a small-scale research. Contributions from the
USA and Estonia feature photographic images, paintings and sculpture in a
museum collection. They examine their socio-cultural meanings and mes-
sages together with the role of image analysis in identity formation. A paper
from Finland is a new departure in that it explores recent developments in
the ‘creative industries’ and their implications for professional training of
artists and designers.
Labitsi asked Greek children aged 8 to draw a story they liked very much
and used categories of visual narrative structure formulated by Kress.&
Leeuwen to analyse the results. Previous research has shown that whereas
some young children are elaborate visual storytellers others find it more dif-
ficult to represent narrative visually. Many of the drawings Labitsi studied
did not represent the unfolding actions the children referred to in their oral
explanations of them. She concluded that their ability to communicate nar-
rative visually was constrained by the limited range of schemata they had
available for this purpose.
The theme of art lunch functioning as a catalyst for a cross-national cur-
riculum experiment involving teacher educators, schoolteachers and children.
The project web site, based in Japan, is evidence that children in eight coun-
tries have created ‘art lunches’ and exchanged outcomes. The lesson content
has been interdisciplinary and combined art expression with learning in geog-
raphy, history, home economics and religion. The Japanese coordinator’s ratio-
nale for the choice of curriculum topic is that food is a fundamental human
need and has universal appeal. It is worth noting however that food display is
an art form in Japan where it has a lengthy history of inclusion in art lessons.
Linnap’s paper examines how and why images engender fear. In the
first part he expresses concern about the increased censorship of photogra-
phy in public places – an anti picture making hysteria – that has gone
beyond all reasonable limits of human freedom. He questions what it is
that people find so shocking, unsettling and frightening about photographs
given the widespread presence of TV and film images deliberately designed
to make explicit and characterise horror and fear. The second part features
photographs of everyday life from a traumatic period of Estonia’s history
that are only just coming to light so as to illustrate his point that ways in
which images engender fear depend on the contexts in which they are cre-
ated and interpreted. It includes images from a photo diary of a flight from
Soviet occupation by an Estonian now domiciled in America and pictures of
everyday life taken by a family deported to Siberia. Linnap points out that
repression or absence of images also engenders fear.
The museum pedagogy explicated by Chandler is grounded in critical
theory, race awareness and her early childhood visits to the Boston Musuem
of Fine Arts. As she points out, museums play a key role in the way young
ETA 3 (3) pp. 169–171. © Intellect Ltd 2007. 169

Americans view their own cultural life and heritage yet they present identity
and heritage from a mono-cultural point of view. The interdisciplinary
approach to image analysis she advocates seeks to differentiate the cultural
memories of ‘transplanted, subjugated peoples’ from this tradition and
examine with students issues of identity, colour and power. The paper
includes contextual information about artworks by John Singleton Copley,
Jean Léon Gérôme and Cyrus Edward Dallin held in the collection of the
Boston Musuem of Fine Arts. This text demonstrates how teachers can use
art historical images representing peoples of colour to stimulate research
and discussion of their presence in 18th century European society, and to
explore topics such as slavery and indented servitude and the oppression of
Native American spiritual beliefs
According to Rautkopi, Finland is a world leader in ‘futures’ research.
Mature postmodern societies operate a new kind of creative economy that
is preoccupied with meaning production and in which intangible values are
important in generating new areas for consumption. The skill dimensions
needed to lead the new creative sector are cultural literacy, craftsmanship,
networking, organisation and the co-configuration and dialogue skills that
enable producers to respond to the unique features of products and cus-
tomer needs. Rautkorpi’s investigation into the form of pedagogy best
suited to respond to these societal needs leads her to interview successful
professionals in the creative and cultural industries who mentor recruits, to
reflect on the way mentoring is embedded in traditional forms of artisanal
work and in supervision of postgraduate research; and to define it as a cul-
tural encounter centring on a shared dramatic performance. Whereas men-
tors support independent problem-solving and decision making, share tacit
knowledge and cultural experience and tell stories about their work,
mentees try to sort out how the mentor works and thinks and participate in
a shared journey into the unknown.
Reading the last paper led me to re-read and reconsider Brent Wilson’s
theory of three pedagogical sites. His first site is the space in which people
create their own art and visual culture with little assistance from art educa-
tors; his second site is the schools and other formal educational settings
where art educators instruct students how to make and interpret art and
visual culture; and his third site is a space that operates at the margins of
the first one in which new forms of hybrid visual culture and meaning arise
through informal contacts between so-called experts and learners. Wilson
contrasts the third site favourably with the second one when he describes it
as a space that is inclusive not exclusive, ambiguous not clear, abnormal
not normal, anti-structural not structural, liminal not sharply defined. The
majority of contributors to this issue seem to want to engage with learners
self-initiated encounters with art and culture (Wilson’s first pedagogical site).
Although they operate within the confines of Wilson’s second site they aspire
to many of his third site pedagogical values. For example they understand art
education outcomes as unfixed, hold to the possibility of new curriculum con-
tent emerging through negotiating their own and their student’s cultural
interests and celebrate the emergence of cultural meanings not yet firmly
resolved. Although their personal pedagogical philosophies are not always
clear, I gained the impression that most of them value art education primarily
for its potential to change the way the learners in their care live their own
170 Editorial
lives and are seeking out ways to escape the confines of the second site by
making their pedagogy more collaborative and less institutional.
References
Kress, G. & Leeuwen, T.V. (1996). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.
London: Routledge
Wilson, B (2007) Third Site Bioquiry: Meditations on Biographical Inquiry and
Third-site Pedagogy. Paper prepared for InSEA Asia Regional Conference Seoul,
Korea, Aug 20–23.
Editorial 171
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Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.173/1. © Intellect Ltd 2007.
Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on

ethnic self-identity, representation and
cultural histories at the Boston MFA
Robin M. Chandler Northeastern University Boston USA
Abstract Keywords
Museums, especially the larger urban visual arts institutions established in the cultural identity
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries serve as repositories of global history, pedagogy
Empire and cultural memory, even as they shape identity. When students of race awareness
colour come to museums, they frequently only see their ancestors depicted in museums
classic portrayals of pre-twentieth century figuration framed by the white imagi- visual representation
nation and often without any mediated interpretation that confronts racialized
visual texts and unpleasant histories. How should scholars and teachers inter-
pret and mediate this space for all students – one that confronts our deepest
fears about cultural authenticity, hegemony, self-representation, narratives and
story telling, prejudice and the passage of time? This article shares excerpts from
an educational game the author has used at secondary and college level for over
a decade. In Colorquest© students explore the cultural and intellectual space
that museum collections and accessioning practices provide for interpreting how
people of colour are represented in their artefacts; and the xenophobic gaze shap-
ing their representation. The pedagogical site for Colorquest© is the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.
Background
As a child in the 1960s I studied drawing and composition at an urban
museum on Saturdays. I travelled the bus line from Cambridge, spent two
hours in classes with my instructors, then frequented the galleries following
my father’s instructions to ‘find people of colour represented in the
museum’. After classes I scoured it for people of colour who looked like
me. Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) remained a private and profes-
sional haunt long after my childhood dream of getting locked up in its cav-
erns after closing hours. In these dreams ended the monumental Pharaoh
Mycerinus came alive and spoke to me of things ancient and Egyptian.
Contemporary cinematographers, dazzled and romanced by the drama,
scale and spectacle of art holdings in museums, have explored ways of
bringing them to life in popular films like the Harry Potter series Frida and
Night at the Museum, for example.
Since then, I have escorted secondary and university students through
the Boston MFA on a pedagogical exercise for more than a decade.
Colorquest©: Identity and Representation sends them on a search for repre-
sentations of people of colour. As the desert traveller in the painting
ETA 3 (3) pp. 173–184 © Intellect Ltd 2007. 173

1. Nineteenth-century The Questioner of the Sphinx,1 by Elihu Vedder (1863), it is possible to frame
painting, Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston. the museum as an African diviner or Delphic oracle availing spectators of
the visual possibilities for understanding its artworks, their creators and the
2. Categories or types of
‘new’ museum include
times in which they lived. My father’s instructions have stayed with me and
heritage-centred, informed Colorquest©.
tourism-centred,
media-technology-
focused, genocide-
Presenting identity
documentary-focused ‘The Museum’ was constructed physically and ideologically as a site of
museums, hands-on power, conquest and intellectual history to preserve artefacts. For the last
science exploratoria,
and many online
200 years as civic institutions museums have constructed memory from a
virtual museums. monocultural viewpoint. Yet, as staged for me by my father, they contained
objects of material culture that brought the world of far distant lands to my
doorstep. I could immerse myself in the national and social identities and
ethnic differences among human beings and time-travel to places most
people only dream about. Later I travelled on six continents but my personal
thirst for global integration and cultural knowledge was first quenched, on a
grand scale, within the museum.
Today, the consumer-student and patron needs a peripheral vision (Moy,
1993) to comprehend the museum as a stage for representing cultural and
racial identity. While the historical ‘other’ may be self-represented in the
creation of the objects, museums often staged them imperialistically from a
perspective of domination inside an Anglo-American or Euro-American tradi-
tion. As a western innovation popularized during an imperial era of global
colonialism, the profession of museum collector arose at a time when
wealthy amateur collectors and universities were collaborating with anthro-
pologists to conserve and preserve the historical past. This form of institu-
tionalization was a pubic enterprise that made the private collections of the
rich accessible to everyday people. In so doing, art museums effectively
defined their own identities as gatekeepers, ideologues and arbiters of taste.
A cadre of entrepreneurial elites was cultivated to display objects in their
collections in ways that would attract and intrigue viewers who knew little or
nothing about their cultural contexts. Presenting identity has always been at
the centre of the museum mission, therefore. In simpler terms, museums took
over the functions of anthropology and private collecting, outwardly for the
social good, and functioned as expressions of national and civic identity
presided over by European gatekeepers. Furthermore, as Boon (1994, p. 9)
has pointed out, they sought to ‘make explicitly exotic populations appear
implicitly familiar and explicitly familiar populations appear implicitly exotic’.
Museum paradigms are changing in the twenty-first century, mostly due
to shifts in audience patronage and applied technologies. Indeed, how long
will the public continue to visit, patronize and support museums as public
spaces of knowledge production? As they evolve as cultural institutions, the
construction of ethnic identity is being reframed by a host of smaller and
newer culturally and ethnically specific museums.2 While not the primary
subject matter of Colorquest©, this game is underpinned by discussion of
race and ethnicity in the current period of ambiguity and artifice. Many
museums were set up during or after punitive colonial conquests that
demonized ‘exotic other’, while simultaneously appropriating their cultural
patrimony in the name of cultural supremacy. These historical memories
have contemporary voices constituted by both pride and shame. Ambiguity
174 Robin M. Chandler

and artifice characterize the complex intersubjectivities of the museum 3. The term
‘entrepreneurial elites’
industry which is a public, social world administered by entrepreneurial refers to museum
elites.3 Writers contributing to cross-cultural discourse about cultural professionals trained
embeddedness converge at the crossroads of identity and are concerned as interpreters of arts
and culture objects,
about how it is influenced by museum acquisition and exhibition policies. the buyers and sellers
This industry is rooted in the interpretation and spectacle of identity and the of museum art, and
manner in which successive generations seek to define their civic commit- the mid-strata of
mid-level personnel
ments and social patriotism. More contemporary views of self-representation who interface between
in the arts and photography have attempted to portray difference from a the public and the
racialized point of view while explicating the complexities caused by para- museum.
digms and practices of racism.4 Who are the new generations of museum 4. An exemplar, ‘Only
consumers? Skin Deep: Changing
Visions of the
American Self’
Neo’s dilemma – the blue or the red pill Exhibition, Museum
The clients of arts education in this new century are largely children of The of Photographic Arts
at San Diego
Matrix (1999). Their greater awareness of the global community, reduced to a Museum, 2005.
neighbourhood by the Internet and the World Wide Web, means that they are
cosmopolitan, well-educated and graphically signed. They acquire knowledge
through glyphs, signs, tags, video and web casts, and computer animation
more rapidly than any generation in the past. Handheld devices will soon be
integrated into the human body, eventually moving us into the realm of
human robotics. Current and future museum patrons are seeking role
models in the geopolitical struggles of good versus evil. What cultural models –
individual and institutional – are museums promoting in practice-based
museum education? In the film The Matrix, the central character Neo is con-
fronted with a dilemma: whether to take a blue pill and remain captive to a
bogus, flatlander, materialist, virtual and unreal world in which appearances
hide uncomfortable truths or, to take the red pill and confront the real world
of contradiction, conflict and chaos – one in which individuals must make
choices for themselves. Today’s youth see the world differently from their
forbears. For them meaning is increasingly made and remade in virtual reality,
popular culture and through transgressing boundaries. Their identities are
formed by interacting influences that both complicate and reduce who they
are and how they see themselves into the future. Their learning environments
can play a key role in shaping their identity and offsetting the data bom-
barding them at home, in the street and from peers (Wenger, 1998). This
generation is producing and reproducing its own multifaceted culture to an
extent Bourdieu never dreamed of (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Furthermore,
pure transmission of knowledge has been replaced by production of knowl-
edge (Freire, 1988) and by new visual and technological literacies.
The subject of inquiry in Colorquest© is the young spectator’s visual,
aesthetic and historical literacy. This pedagogical tool is both object and
context-centred. Identity formation is more interesting to students than
iconological exegesis and Colorquest© offers them the opportunity to rec-
oncile objects in museums with their own histories, education and multi-
ple identities. Theories of how cultural identity is generated have limitations
partially due to the monodisciplinary training of most educators and their
fear of approaching subjects like genocide, slavery or the crimes against
humanity represented in art. Interdisciplinary applied research considers
how these findings may be applied to art education. Schools and cultural
Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity… 175

5. Visit UNESCO on institutions (museums et al.) are emerging as sites of reconstruction,

the web at
http://www.unesco.
debate and knowledge production about the ego and how identity is
org/culture/ formed. Educators, therefore, are playing a critical role where their pedagogy
masterpieces. is culturally responsive (Gay, 2000). The experience of taking students on
innumerable museum field visits led me to formulate a reflexive peda-
gogy building upon interdisciplinary cross-cultural inquiry. However, there
is a strong indigenous compulsion embedded in museum collections and
audiences. Recent studies of museum audience development in the United
States and elsewhere (e.g. Danylak, 2002) have explored issues of represen-
tation, myth and stereotyping and examined the role of specifically ‘ethnic’
museums. Today cultural politics is driving museums to deconstruct iden-
tity in their exhibitions and accession policies.
Authenticity and heritage in the ‘floating classroom’

In the Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World, Carlos Fuentes
(1999) depicted the world of the Americas as a ‘Utopia, the happy place of
the natural man’. He observed that,
… the baroque was a shifting art, akin to a mirror in which we see our con-
stantly changing identity. It was an art dominated by the single, imposing fact
that we were caught between the destroyed Indian world and a new universe
that was both European and American.
(Fuentes, 1999, p. 196)
How can educators reconstruct the differentiated cultural memories of

transplanted or subjugated peoples brought to the Americas or, of pre-
existing Native Indian societies; and how are these histories contained in
museums? How can they convey an accurate picture of history through
visits to local art museums? During the nineteenth century the ideologies
of social Darwinism and eugenics and the colonization of arts and artefacts
of newly conquered territories were accompanied by the classification of
non-Europeans as non- or sub-human. The colonized individual was both a
human subject of the conquering nation (albeit without equal citizenship
rights) and a material subject of intellectual curiosity. As cultural anthropology,
archaeology and pseudo-science emerged as academic disciplines, natural
history museums became repositories for both ritual objects and body
parts.
UNESCO implemented a global Proclamation Programme in 2003 to
safeguard ‘intangible heritage’ or ‘living human treasures’ of nations and
groups.5 The Programme asserts that, while cultural heritage (both living
and traditional) may be constantly shifting or in danger of extinction, it
‘provides a sense of identity and continuity to groups and communities and
constitutes a crucible of cultural diversity’. Along with the Proclamation of
Masterpieces, countries that support the notion of ‘intangible cultural her-
itage’ can designate certain individuals as ‘living human treasures’. This posi-
tion UNESCO has adopted supports the view taken in this article that it is
important that individuals and groups reflect on their cultural life and heritage
through studying cultural artefacts in museums. The museum enterprise is a
part of the cultural sector in cities and towns all around the world.

Connecting the dots in theory and practice

The Colorquest© game enables identification of museum subjects in that
portray people of colour in a variety of contexts. The vast scale of the
Boston MFA and my familiarity with its more obscure recesses make it an
ideal site for exploring issues of identity, culture and power and for search-
ing out how Europeans viewed themselves in contrast to the indigenous
peoples they conquered. The focus of the search is on clarifying culturally
specific perceptions about difference from a European perspective.
The pedagogy was nurtured in several educational contexts. I served as
a primary- and secondary-school consultant and worked in higher educa-
tion for two decades, but not as a conventional art educator. Instead, I
undertook sociological-type fieldwork and pursued an active studio career.
So I have been steered along several inquiry paths. Whereas the theories
mentioned earlier informed the development of Colorquest© the pedagogy
sets out to bring these discussions of race and difference into the real world
of attitudes, behaviours, feelings, social practices, customs, stereotypes
and public opinion.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, as director of Caravan, I worked as a
human-relations trainer and my search for studies of race and difference
led me to sociology. Studying the social nature of systems and individu-
als helped me understand the way difference and power operate.
I became interested in how sociological theorizing about identity forma-
tion might apply to the arts. I discovered that scholars like Becker (1982)
and Zolberg (1990) had investigated ‘art worlds, but not in ways that
address art teachers’ everyday concerns. Art historians, on the other hand,
resisted social theories and contextual approaches to studying art. Some art
educators who were artists brought an experiential ethos to their teaching
and others were more concerned with pedagogy or mediating public arts
policy to schools. These are all essential tributaries of a healthy, vibrant art
world. However, my understanding of interdisciplinary praxis is rooted in a
belief that the arts can effect social change and have a profound impact
on teaching and learning, school reform and teacher training. Art educa-
tion can have a civilizing effect on systems when it leads children to reflect
on their own nobility and the contributions they and their racial ancestors
have made to humanity. But this cannot happen unless they see them-
selves represented, or represented positively, in museum collections and
exhibitions.
Colorquest©: instructor preparation

Step 1:
Identify a large urban museum, with diverse collections and exhibitions.
Step 2:
Study the collections and exhibitions over time, becoming familiar with all
the galleries and being careful not to exclude any historical periods, media
or special collections you might assume do not contain representations of
people of colour. (Most do – from medieval tapestries to seventeenth-
century ceramics and Etruscan vases and to contemporary painting or pho-
tography.)

Step 3
Identify a selection of works that depict a wide range of regions and historical
periods. Representations that are figurative and representational rather
than abstract offer greater impact. Two kinds of documentation are necessary.
First, record all the descriptive data you can about the works, artists, etc.
Second, purchase or rent slides of the artworks for review in class after
Colorquest©. (If slides are not available at the gift shop or university
archives, scan postcards or images from books and make your own slides
at institutional media centres. Or download digitized images from the
Internet/ online for PowerPoint.)
Step 4
Construct a list of ‘hip clues’ you are sure will resonate with your students
of whatever age. Following the museum visit, class discussion can be a fertile
debriefing, consciousness-raising, learning event for both teacher and
student.
Step 5
Student projects that involve interactive media, comparative study and
cross-cultural references can result from Colorquest©. Understanding dif-
ferences in generational perspectives is a significant learning outcome
where instructors are open to whatever new world-view students bring to
discussion and projects.
The pedagogy
A cross-disciplinary curriculum approach consisting of courses in art
history, aesthetics, humanities and social sciences is the ideal context to
prepare for this search game/exercise. Begin with a lecture/discussion
(Step 4). If the Americas are the primary focus, for example, sessions
might begin with discussion of pre-Columbian art, western imperialism,
the politics of colonialism and postcolonialism, the meeting of East and
West and cultural conflict as well as exchange.
Discussion of aboriginal art could include a review of the British occupa-
tion of Australia and how these indigenous histories were shaped by power
and prestige.
This kind of discussion requires interdisciplinary rigour and familiarity
with history, economics, art and social policy, religion and political science.
Intergenerational dialogue between teachers and students is a rich environ-
ment for exchanging ideas about representation, cultural perceptions; and
about how communities of colour have been both marginalized and valorized
across history by artists, collectors and museums. The twenty-first-century
consciousness of today’s students opens up ‘teachable moments’ for shar-
ing views about a range of significant concepts like ‘persons of colour’,
enslavement and exploitation, and context-centred approaches to the study
of art or symbolism and spirituality. In any case, these preliminary discus-
sions are a rudimentary preparation for Colorquest©.
During the museum visit, students work in pairs. A list of clues about
selected artworks is distributed and they are charged with finding as many
as possible in a limited time period (minimum: one hour). You may need to
tell younger students to check their time and location every 30 minutes, make

sure at least one member in each pair has a watch, and share rules of 6. See R. Chandler
(1996).
museum conduct (like not talking to strangers). Finally, plan to wander the
museum acting as mentor/teacher. Urban museums can be very busy
places, so plan the visit for a low-volume day. Hand out one list of clues per
pair and ask one student in each pair to volunteer as a scribe. The list of
clues is the key. Clues must be given a humorous, contemporary and youth-
relevant ‘spin’ in order to trigger verve, make the search a thought-provoking
game and tap into generationally specific lingo and popular culture.
In what follows I have selected some site-specific examples of eminently
popular works at Boston MFA that could provide a basis for discussion and
have provided some examples of clues.
IMAGE 1:
Work of art: Watson and the Shark. John Singleton Copley (American,
1738–1815), oil on canvas, 72 x 90 (1778).
CLUE 1: A local boy telling ‘a fish story’ in an eighteenth-century version of
‘Jaws’.
Copley’s painting depicts an unknown person of African descent at the pin-

nacle of a morbid boating struggle in the harbour. Located in the Evans
Wing of the Boston MFA, this painting suggests numerous discussion top-
ics pertaining to the presence of Africans in New World Boston, the occupa-
tional lives of these people from mariners to labourers and intellectuals and
the presence of free and slave classes in eighteenth-century Boston and its
slave-carrying trade. Students can investigate the history of that African
presence, the depiction of people of colour in Copley’s works or a host of
other topics. The triangulation of the figure at the pinnacle with the boat
ends in the foreground makes this monumental painting a powerful visual
encounter with tragedy at sea, and the spectator feels a part of the event.
Students will take away a fresh understanding of teamwork in action and
how ‘colour’ becomes unimportant when people have to work together
towards a common goal. Copley treated the African presence in the same
way as all the other characters. He did not retreat into caricature or parody.6
Precisely because this portrayal is naturalistic, the work functions as a start-
ing point for discussion about ‘free blacks’, indentured servitude and the
prevailing and ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery in the United States that did
not end until 1863.
During Copley’s time, the slave trade was in full force. Slaves existed in
New England circles and prominent New England families benefited from
it. Klein (1986) and numerous other scholars cite the 10 to 15 million
Africans captured, sold and transported from the Old World (Africa) to the
New World (the Americas) as ‘one of the great crimes against humanity in
world history, which was made no better by the fact that Africans as well as
Europeans participated in its rewards’ (ibid, p. 140) In Art of Exclusion,
Boime (1990) writes that the English Abolitionist movement was in its
infancy when Copley painted Watson and the Shark, noting that slavery con-
tinued in the Massachusetts Commonwealth long past the production of
this picture and, indeed, in the very year of its execution. ‘Even the status of

7. In R. Gonzalez (1992), freedmen and freedwomen proved troublesome for the colonists, in a state
Without Discovery: A
Native Response to
whose proposed constitution excluded “negroes, Indians, and mulattoes”
Columbus. from the suffrage, demonstrating that public sentiment was far from
unanimous on the question of political rights for emancipated slaves’
(Boime, 1990, p. 30).
Given such a history, students are free to imagine a variety of possibili-
ties within the historical frame.
IMAGE 2:
Work of art: Appeal to the Great Spirit, Cyrus Edwin Dallin (American
1861–1944). H: 309.9 cm; L: 260.3 cm; W: 111.1 cm. (1909).
CLUE 2: Even in a prayerful pose on my trusty steed, it isn’t easy being
green (except when they clean up my bronze body) – especially in this
unpredictable New England ‘feather’ weather. And my neck… It’s killing me.
This outdoor bronze sculpture of a Native American Indian invoking the

Creator sits at the Huntington Avenue entrance to the Boston MFA. It
grew progressively greener with tarnish until modern conservation meth-
ods were developed. It is a welcome acknowledgement of the Indian pres-
ence and history in New England. Dallin completed several sculptures of
Native people including Massasoit (a seventeenth-century Sachem of the
Wampanoag) and Menotomy, an Algonquin word meaning ‘place of run-
ning water’. As a friend and colleague of John Singer Sargeant and
Augustus St. Gaudens, the sculptor of Boston’s Shaw Memorial standing
opposite the State House, Dallin’s portrayal of Native Americans is conso-
nant with the romantic character of paintings and sculpture at the time. A
discussion among students about how these artists worked together, passed
on commissions, understood and were inspired by the wider historical,
archaeological, ethnographic and social paradigms of the fin de siècle era is
an engaging forum for career preparation in the arts. Sharing information
about early Native American Indian defiance, desperation, loss, decima-
tion and genocide in the face of European annihilation is crucial. This was
an important excerpt in American history that students must come to
understand and own as part of their national identity and citizenship.
Many Indian societies at this time were deeply spiritual and fervently
devoted to a cosmological view of the universe rooted in guardianship of
the land and environment. In most cases this world-view was dismissed by
Europeans as pagan. The Dallin sculpture epitomizes the era of the ‘White
Ghost dance’ and other religious movements practised illegally by Native
peoples who felt a sense of hopelessness in the face of white barbarity in
the late nineteenth century – forced land removal, genocide, massacre,
broken treaties, and removal of their children to Indian schools for assimi-
lation in America, north and south.
In his essay ‘Reclaiming Ourselves, Reclaiming America’ Francisco
Alarcón (1992)7 explains that Native peoples view the ‘discovery’ of America
by Columbus as a conquest. He elucidates the ‘scope of the nightmare,
holocaust effect the arrival of Europeans had on the Native peoples of this
continent: ‘If only we could feel within ourselves the sorrow and despair of a

Native population of 20 million in Mesoamerica at the time of the coming

of the Europeans, reduced to less than two million one hundred years later’
(Gonzales, 1992, p. 32) He punctuates this commentary with the proviso:
‘No account is possible. Words are useless. We are forced to experience this
knowledge outside language’ [My italics] (Gonzales, 1992, p. 33).
IMAGE 3:
Work of art: Moorish Bath, Jean Léon Gérôme (French 1824 –1904), oil on
canvas, 20 x 16 ins
CLUE 3: Jerome ‘cleaning up his act’ in a bathroom in the Middle East??
At a time when the Middle East is an ever-present player in geopolitical

events, studying a nineteenth-century painting that portrays a Moor is most
relevant. Historically the term ‘Moor’ refers to people of mixed Arab and
Berber ancestry and of North African lineage who conquered Spain in the
eighth century, and also connotes Muslim culture. Used historically, it also
can also refer to all dark-skinned or miscegenated people from India to the
Americas. This painting provides a jump start for a conversation about why
people defined as Moors were in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Near East and
for speaking about French nineteenth-century painting at the time of
Jerome when the French held colonial power or indirect rule in many
regions of the world. The practice of using Moors or blacks as slaves and/or
‘cultural oddities’ in middle and upper European circles and court life is well
documented in literature and numerous western paintings. The words of
the late Edward Said, who referred to nineteenth-century (western) writers
understanding of the Orient as a locale meriting ‘attention, reconstruction,
even redemption’ (Said, 1979, p. 167), have contemporary resonance in
relation to civil strife and war in the Middle East. He further stated, ‘the pro-
fessional contributors to Oriental knowledge were anxious to couch their
formulations and ideas, their scholarly work, their considered contempo-
rary observations, in language and terminology whose cultural validity
derived from other sciences and systems of thought’ (Said, 1979, p. 206).
Said addressed the backdrop of political and economic forces that reinforce
‘Orientalizing’, or the Eurocentric requirement to represent the other and,
as a Palestinian Arab, he observed the West observing the Orient and in
particular, the Muslim Orient. Intersections between the cultural politics of
gender and race are a probable discussion topic in response to this work as
students explore ways in which racialized identity oppressed women of
colour more than any other group historically. Many artists have accessed
the politics of colour in their work and critical analysis of the artistic imagi-
nation have produced numerous commentaries on the displacement,
projection and pathology of theories of white racial superiority.
The seeds of Colorquest©: closing comments about

exclusion and art worlds
Colorquest© offers entry into cultural worlds through artistic expression and
reflection. The pedagogy can inform students’ own processes of identity
formation given an inspired teacher.

I remember my undergraduate and graduate education at university as

indoctrination not education. I rejected the well-known textbook History of
Art (Janson 1977) because of its western, Christian bias. It included scant
representation of or by women or artists of colour. Since then, the United
States has witnessed the creation of separatist, discrete art worlds devoted
to women’s art, Latin American art, African American art, as well a longer
tradition of production and institutionalization in Native American art.
Each art world has produced its own infrastructure in parallel to those of
institutions and largely in response to unofficial policies of white privilege
and male advantage. While this is not a comforting history to revisit, and
others may have experienced it differently, I matured in an exclusive art
world in which screening and legitimating policies within pubic practice
existed but were not written down because this would have violated constitu-
tional values. Since my own career path intersects at art history, cultural dif-
ference and sociology and since I am a practising visual artist I, and others
like me, have survived with our sense of integrity and nobility intact.
This article has not engaged with the most recent museum studies lit-
erature, which is extensive and included important works by Karp, Kratz,
Szwaja & Ybarra-Frausto (2007), Carbonell (2003) and Lavine (1991) to
name but a few. Early art education literature on ‘art games’ including
Katter (1986) or Hurwitz & Madeja (1977) were not mentioned because
Colorquest© is rooted in critical theory and race awareness. The article
does not connect with cultural studies literature and is primarily informed
by the anti-racism training that emerged in the 1970s, multicultural educa-
tion theory and practice and the diversity awareness literature influenced
prominently by Banks (2006). Beginning in 1968, this was a decade of rev-
olution, both social and political. Colorquest© does not directly engage
with the theoretical exposition of public culture that characterizes a new
body of research on museums as cultural institutions. My concern is with
the historically conditioned interaction one museum provides and my
readings of the artworks as an adult artist who has patronized it for over
forty years. Although I trained as an schoolteacher I have taught mainly in
higher education. While I am familiar with curriculum trends such as
DBAE, municipal teaching and the perennial political struggle in America
to maintain arts programmes in schools my work has focused on the
global project of visual culture. In my studio work, lecturing and publish-
ing, and from my trans-racial religious perspective, I have found the social
sciences the most promising arena for exploration. This article cites a
diverse spectrum of scholarship and practice, therefore. Some scholars of
museum policy and critics have noticed a shift of attitude towards public
outreach. The notion of ‘the museum’ is class-related in that patrons,
audiences and administrative personnel have always been drawn from
better educated, well-off upper classes. Class production and the repro-
duction of wealth and status is nothing new. However, museum education
departments underwent a period of self-reflection and audience analysis in
the 1970s and 1980s in an effort to cross class boundaries. The multicul-
tural education movements of this era produced a new paradigm of ‘repre-
sentativeness’. Arts departments in historically black and Indian colleges
and predominantly white colleges and universities began to churn out
artists, art consultants, art collectors and arts experts who challenged the

white racial hegemony that had previously dominated the art world. But my
experience was that the predominantly white young and older art museum
educators at this time were relatively uninformed and naïve about ethnic
and racial difference.
Following each museum visit, students’ findings and questions with
respect to the history and provenance of works of art should be discussed
and processed, but as visceral experiences carrying emotional weight.
When I first walked the marble floors of the Boston MFA in the 1960s, there
were no African, South Pacific or Nubian collections and no Japanese or
Chinese art to speak of; there was little work if any by artists of colour, or
women. In closing, it is important to point out that multimedia technology
has played a pivotal role in the way Colorquest© is processed afterwards in
discussion with students. Online course chat rooms, group media projects
that critique museums, interactive web research, and online art historical
archives and virtual museums have all altered the pedagogy for the better.
Film and Internet resources provide additional cultural insights into
museum holdings. Colorquest© continues to function as ‘a safe space’
for dialogues on race and stimulating critical thinking and inquiry on racial
difference that goes beyond fear and shame.
References
Banks, J.( 2006) Race Culture and Education: The selected work of James Banks. New
York: Routledge.
Becker, H. (1982). Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California.
Boime, A. (1990). The Art of Exclusion (Representing Blacks in The Nineteenth
Century). Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Boon, J.A. (1994). Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the
Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions, Texts. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, C. (1977). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Carbonell, B.M. (Ed.) (2003). Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts. Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Chandler, R. (1996). Xenophobes, visual terrorism, and the African subject, Third
Text 35 (Summer), 15–28.
Danylak, K. (2002). Museums Australia – Evaluation and visitor research-topic:
Exploding the myths behind multicultural and indigenous audience develop-
ment: A case study from three new museums. Cultural Perspectives. Paper pre-
sented at Museums Australia Conference, Adelaide- Once Upon Our Times.
MA2002danylak.pdf.
Dominguez, V. (1986). The marketing of heritage. American Ethnologist 13 (3)
546–555.
Katter, E. (1988). An approach to art games: Playing and planning. Art Education
41 (3) 46–48 & 50–54.
Freire, P. (1988). Pedagogy of Freedom. New York: Seabird Press.
Fuentes, C. (1999). The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research and Practice. New
York: Teacher’s College Press.

Gonzalez, R. (Ed.) (1992). Without Discovery: A Native Response to Columbus. Seattle:

Broken Moon Press.
Hurwitz, A. & Madeja, S. (1977). Joyous View. New York: Prentice Hall.
Janson, H. W. & D. J. (1977) History of Art: A Survey of the Major Visual Arts from the
Dawn of History to Present Day. New York: H N Abrams.
Karp, I., Kratz, C., Szwaja, L. & Ybarra-Frausto, T. (Eds.) (2007). Museum Frictions:
Public Cultures/Global Transformations. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Klein, H.S. (1986). African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Lavine, S. (1991). Exhibiting Cultures: The Practice and Politics of Museum Display.
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute.
Moy, J. (1993). Marginal Sights: Staging the Chinese in America. Iowa City: University
of Iowa Press.
‘Only Skin Deep Symposium: Changing visions of the American self’ (2005).
Exhibit- ‘Visualizing Race in American Phorography’, Museum of Photographic
Arts at San Diego. 1 October –31 December. For further information, see
http://www.sdmart.org/exhibition-skindeep-symposium.html
Accessed, November 15, 2007.
Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
UNESCO (2001–2005). Third Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible
Heritage of Humanity. United National Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization. On-line at http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00103.
Accessed, November 15, 2007.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zolberg, V. (1990). Constructing a Sociology of the Arts. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Suggested citation
Chandler, R.M. (2007), ‘Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-
identity, representation and cultural histories at the Boston MFA’, International
Journal of Education through Art 3: 3, pp. 173–184. doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.173/1
Contributor details
With a portfolio in the visual arts and sociology, Dr Robin M. Chandler has been a
practising artist for more than 25 years and has exhibited in the United States and
abroad (http://www.robin-chandler.com). She has conducted field research and
community projects taught and lectured in South America, Africa, Latin America
and the Caribbean, Australia, Asia, and the United States. A widely published author,
Chandler is an associate professor, at Northeastern University’s Department of
African American Studies. A former Fulbright scholar (South Africa 1996), she has
been a consultant to numerous museums and corporations and is a well-known
spokesperson and activist for the arts, the advancement of women, and the empow-
erment of black, Latino, Native Indian and Asian communities. Contact: Dr. Robin
M. Chandler Associate Professor, Department of African American Studies And
Director of Women’s Studies (2004–2006), Northeastern University, 132
Nightingale Hall, Boston, MA 02115617-373-5681(o) 617-373-2625(f).
E-mail: r.chandler@neu.edu
www.robin-chandler.com

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‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry

into the representation of narrative
structures in Greek children’s drawings
Vasiliki Labitsi Greece
Abstract Keywords
Visual narrative construction plays a key role in how children develop their drawing
understanding of the world and communicate ideas and meanings. In this visual primary children
text I examine how a small sample of 8-year-old children from Greece employed visual narrative
narrative structures to represent unfolding actions and processes of change narrative structures
in narrative drawings. Aided by a set of categories developed by Kress and van Greece
Leeuwen (1996), I discuss the four main types of narrative structure the children
employed and the difficulties they experienced drawing characters in action.
Children and visual narrative

Visual narrative or telling stories through a picture or sequence of pictures
is a means through which children develop and communicate ideas and
thoughts about themselves and the world. According to Kellman (1995),
spontaneous visual narrative-making enables children to reconstruct their
interior, psychological worlds, illustrate the day-to-day details of their lives
and come to terms with its demands and situations.
A narrative dimension is very common in children’s spontaneous Narrative
drawings. From approximately the age of 5, drawing seems to become the structures:
primary vehicle for their narrative-making (Wilson & Wilson, 1980). This is The visual represen-
probably because the visual medium offers particular strengths over other tation of unfolding
modes of communication. actions and processes
Setting, characters and unfolding actions are three basic elements of of change.
any narrative (Porter Abbot, 2002). However, according to Wilson & Wilson
(1979), children’s visual narratives tend to exist in a fragmented form and
one or more of these basic elements may be missing. For example, some
children develop elaborate settings but do not people them with characters.
Some concentrate on drawing actions devoid of any setting; others create
characters that never go into action.
Research by Wilson (2002), Wilson & Wilson (1977; 1980) and Barrs
(1988, p. 64) has shown that some children become quite elaborate visual
storytellers with practice and the aid of popular visual narrative resources
like comics. But in my experience as a teacher many primary-age children
find it difficult to represent ‘narrative structures’ visually.
Recently I studied a sample of 36 narrative drawings by 8-year-old Greek
children collected in two primary-school settings and analysed the kinds
of narrative structures they represented and the constraints they faced.

Figure 1: Girl and the sunset.
The children were asked to draw a story they liked very much. Once the draw-
Vector: A strong
ings were completed they were asked to explain orally what they had drawn.
directional thrust,
usually diagonal,
Examining narrative structures in children’s drawings
that connects
Narrative structures are recognizable by the presence of ‘vectors’. In one-
characters with each
fourth of the drawings examined narrative structures were not repre-
other or a character
sented visually, even when the children described unfolding action in their
with an object. A
oral explanations of them. For example, one participant child described her
vector can be formed
drawing as follows (Figure 1):
by a body or limbs of
characters, objects
A girl climbs, climbs, climbs, climbs to reach the sunset.
they are holding or
their eyeline (Kress &
Kress & van Leeuwen (1996) have distinguished a number of different types
van Leeuwen, 1996;
of narrative structure that can be represented in the visual mode and provide
Jewitt & Oyama,
extensive descriptions of each one. When these categories were applied to
2001).
the drawings in the sample the findings were that the majority of children
employed four of them (Figure 2).
Type of narrative structure Frequency

Unidirectional transactional action 10
Non-transactional action 8
Mental/verbal process 7
Bi-directional transactional action 4
Figure 2: Most frequent narrative structure types.
186 Vasiliki Labitsi

Unidirectional
transactional
action: A vector
emanates from a
character and is
directed towards a
passive participant
who is usually a
non-acting character
or some object and is
the ‘goal’ of the
action (Kress & van
Leeuwen, 1996).
Figure 3: Going shopping at the supermarket.
‘Unidirectional transactional actions’ was the most common narrative

structure. Typically the goals of such actions were objects or tools the char-
acters were holding or directing their hands towards (Figures 3–6).
‘Non-transactional action’ was the second most frequent type of narra-
tive structure. In one case, the bodies of the human characters shown in
side view in the ‘air gap’, the space formed between the sky and ground
lines of the drawing, formed a vector that suggested the direction in which
Figure 4: Mother and child panda eating.
‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry into the representation of narrative… 187
Figure 5: Picasso painting.
Figure 6: Robin Hood fights his enemies.

they were heading (Figure 7). In one sequential drawing the presence of
vectors was established through viewing the narrative as a sequence of rec-
tangular frames (Figure 8). In this example, the body of a plant shown
larger and taller in each subsequent frame suggested a vertical vector ema-
nating from the ground that was directed upwards. The action of growth
was non-transactional since it did not point to or was not aimed at anybody.
‘Mental and verbal processes’ were the third most common type of nar-
rative structure evident in the sample. The written texts included in thought
Non-transactional
action: A vector
emanates from a
character but does
not point at anybody
or anything. The
action is not done to
anybody or anything
(Kress & van
Leeuwen, 1996).
Figure 7: Peter Pan and Wendy flying over a rainbow.
Figure 8: A tree growing.
or speech bubbles projected the thoughts, feelings and intentions of repre-

Mental and verbal sented characters and consisted of dialogues, monologues, questions and
processes: They are expletives. The spontaneous inclusion of this written material confirmed
formed by the the multimodal character of children’s visual practices (Anning & Ring,
presence of thought 2004; Kress 1997; Bearne, 2003). In one case, a group of tin men inspired
and speech bubbles. by Tintown (Tenekedoupoli) a well-known illustrated book for children dealt
The oblique protru- with the problem of how to cross a river. The dialogue was essential to
sions of thought and understanding the narrative. It communicated the problem as it occurred,
speech bubbles form the characters’ concerns about it and finally the solution (crossing a nearby
a vector connecting bridge) (Figure 10).
speakers or thinkers
with their thoughts
or words (Kress &
van Leeuwen, 1996).
Figure 9: Tintown characters trying to cross a river.
Figure 10: Bank robbery.

Figure 11: Two giants fighting.
‘Bi-directional transactional action’ was the least frequent type of narra-

tive structure employed to represent characters in conflict. Strong double Bi-directional
vectors were evident in the raised hands of characters holding weapons and transactional
were enhanced by bullet lines or action lines formed by cannon balls action: Vectors
(Figures 10 and 11). connect two
characters interact-
Discussion ing. They simultane-
The children’s visual representations of narrative structures were rather ously emanate from
limited. In several cases they did not employ any. Even when their stated and are directed at
intention was to show characters in action. When they did use them the both of them (Kress
tendency was to show characters holding objects (unidirectional transac- & van Leeuwen,
tional actions), acting alone (non-transactional actions), or thinking and 1996).
talking with the aid of speech and thought bubbles (mental/verbal
processes) that transferred the action from the visual to the written
medium.
One possible explanation is that their visual narrative-making was con-
strained by the limited range of schemata or standard ways of representing
objects they had at their disposal that were replicated formulaically
(Thomas, 1995). The repetition suggests that they may have felt more com-
fortable using schemata they had mastered well (e.g. frontal upright depic-
tions of human figures) and found it difficult to adapt them according to
their communication purposes (for example, to bend parts of the body of a
human character or depicting them in profile in order to show them gazing
and interacting with other characters or objects). Drawing characters
holding objects and inserting speech or thought bubbles requires only a

minimum deviation from the standard frontal orientation as explained by
Golomb (2004) and Thomas & Silk (1990).
References
Anning, A. & Ring, K. (2004). Making sense of children’s drawings. Maidenhead,
Berkshire & New York: Open University Press.
Barrs, M. (1988). Drawing a story: Transitions between drawing and writing. In
L. Martin & N. Martin (Eds.), The word for teaching is learning: Essays for James
Brittan (pp. 51–56). Portsmouth: Heinemann Educational Books.
Bearne, E. (2003), Introduction. Ways of knowing, ways of showing: Towards an
integrated theory of text. In M. Styles & E. Bearne (Eds.), Art, narrative and
childhood. Stoke on Trent, UK & Sterling, USA: Trentham Books.
Golomb, C. (2004). The child’s creation of a pictorial world. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Jewitt, C. & Oyama, R. (2001). Visual meaning: A social semiotic approach. In T. van
Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of visual analysis (pp. 134–156). London:
Sage Publications.
Kellman, J. (1995). Harvey shows the way: Narrative in children’s art, Art Education,
48 (2), 19–22.
Kress, G. (1997). Before writing: Rethinking the parts of literacy. London: Routledge.
Kress, G. & Leeuwen, T.V. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design.
London: Routledge.
Labitsi V. (2006). Visual narrative in children’s books and drawings: The Greek case.
Ph.D. thesis, Roehampton University.
Porter Abbot, H.P. (2002). A Cambridge introduction to narrative. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Thomas, G.V. (1995). The role of drawing strategies and skills. In C. Lange-Kuttner &
G. Thomas (Eds.), Drawing and looking: Theoretical approaches to pictorial repre-
sentation in children, New York & London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Thomas, G.V. & Silk, A.M.J. (1990). An introduction to the psychology of children’s
drawings. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Wilson, B. (2002). Becoming Japanese: Manga, children’s drawings, and the con-
struction of national character. In L. Bresler & C.M. Thompson (Eds.), The arts in
children’s lives (pp. 43–55). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Wilson, B. & Wilson, M. (1977). An iconoclastic view of the imagery sources in the
drawings of young people. Art Education, 30 (1), 5–11.
—— (1979). Children’s story drawings: Reinventing worlds. School Arts, 79 (8), 6–11.
—— (1980). Cultural recycling: The uses of conventional configurations, images
and themes in the narrative drawings of American children in arts. In J. Condus,
J. Howles & J. Skull (Eds.), Cultural diversity (pp. 227–281). Sydney: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston.
Suggested citation
Labitsi, V. (2007), ‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry into the representa-
tion of narrative structures in Greek children’s drawings’, International Journal
of Education through Art 3: 3, pp. 185–193. doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.185/1

Contributor details
Vasiliki Labitsi is an educational consultant for the Greek Ministry of Education, a
children’s book illustrator and teaches art education in the Education Department
at Athens University. She has undergraduate degrees in Primary Education and
Sociology, Master’s degrees in Art Education and Children’s Literature and has stud-
ied illustration at Ornerakis School of Applied Arts. She recently completed a Ph.D.
thesis in Art Education at Roehampton University. She has illustrated children’s
books for several Greek publishing houses and the Ministry of Education and has
exhibited her illustration work in Greece and Europe. She is a member of the board
of the Greek Association of Children’s Book Illustrators and has worked as assistant
editor of the International Journal of Education Through Art. Contact: Propondithos
16, Oropos, Attiki, 19015, Greece.
E-mail: vlabitsi@yahoo.co.uk
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ETA_3.3_04_art_Fukumoto.qxd 12/11/07 8:16 PM Page 195

Art Lunch Project: an international

collaboration among art teachers
Kinichi Fukumoto Hyogo University of Teacher Education
Japan (coordinator)
Abstract
The Art Lunch Project is a pilot study involving international collaboration of art
educators and teachers. The main aim was to compare approaches to teaching
the common theme of an art lunch. Lessons organized around this theme took
place in both art and interdisciplinary lessons in schools in nine countries. The
majority of children recreated traditional food and meals in a range of art media
and materials and only a few created ‘fantastic art meals’. This project is still
under way and the participant teachers are discussing the issues that arise. They
understand this international project as positive in that it functions as advocacy
for the subject of art in their school curricula as well as facilitating pupils’
creative skills.
Introduction
The Art Lunch Project aims to exchange practical teaching experience. The 1. Project website
http://www.art.hyogo-u.
participants come from nine countries: Portugal, Germany, the United ac.jp/fukumo/
Kingdom, the Philippines, Turkey, Slovenia, Finland, Denmark and Japan. It ArtLunchProject/
is an ongoing project in which art or homeroom teachers in schools ArtLunchHome.html
interpret the common theme of ‘an art lunch’ in collaboration with university-
based researchers in art education in their classrooms. Work completed by
pupils is uploaded to the website listed below1 for mutual viewing by partici-
pating teachers and children. In some countries, they are used for teaching
art appreciation.
The reasons for selecting this theme were that curricula organized
around the fundamental human need for food are likely to have universal
appeal and the results will reflect national cultural differences. In Japan in
particular there is a strong tradition of including food design as a curricu-
lum topic in lower primary-school grades and a custom of displaying sam-
ple dishes that goes back to the Taisho period (1912–26).
Content of lessons in each country

How did teachers in the participating countries approach the theme? What
were the children’s responses? What kinds of art materials were used in
classrooms to pursue which expressive aims? The resulting expressive
activities will be introduced now, country by country, with accompanying
images.

Portugal
Ms Emilia Lopes’s lessons with seventh-grade pupils were interdisciplinary
and combined such diverse subjects as art, English, science (sitology),
geography, history and culture, home economics and religion. The main
learning objectives were that pupils should gain a thorough understanding
of cultural differences in cooking and of art as a mode of expression.
Practical work was preceded by discussion of the history and culture of
foreign countries designed to facilitate understanding of different world
regions and pupils were asked to submit an individual report on a particu-
lar region. This was followed by activities designed to get them to think
about how to express an art lunch using clay as the main medium and to
choose a recipe for a meal. Then they created forks and cups out of waste
material for a purposefully designed table setting.
196 Kinichi Fukumoto

Slovenia
Ms Marjana Prevodnik targeted third-grade pupils at her primary school
and conceived a lesson using waste materials to enhance environmental
awareness that highlighted safety. The first practical step was to collect safe
materials in collaboration with parents and ensure that none of these con-
tained harmful substances. The next step was to study typical meals in
Japan and Slovenia to stimulate artistic ideas. While the teacher proposed
they create traditional Slovenian dishes such as zanti (a vegetable soup
Art Lunch Project: an international collaboration among art teachers 197

mainly consisting of cabbage), krvavica (blood sausage) and vipara struklji

(cheese custard strudel), the pupils chose to create a chocolate cake and
handmade cookies, reflecting their own tastes in real life. After this, their
work was displayed at a cultural festival in the school called ‘Spring Bazaar’.
In addition, they e-mailed electronic messages about the work to partici-
pants in other countries. These included: ‘We want to show you some
meals from cardboard and clay’, ‘We have prepared fish dishes’, and ‘We
have made Slovenian dishes that differ from those in your country – please
enjoy them.’

Turkey
In Turkey, Ms Dilek Acer and Dr Ayse Ilhan worked on the project with
fourth-grade pupils in a primary school. While undergoing a brainstorming
session, their pupils freely experimented with ideas for an art lunch using
coloured drawing paper and created a collage. Then they were asked to
research food and cooking and prepare written reports. Through subse-
quent discussion, they developed a basic understanding of the culture of

food. A cultural attaché from the Japanese Consulate visited the school and
explained Japanese dishes like sushi and bento, which stimulated these
pupils’ interest in another culture and world region. He actively collabo-
rated in the project and contributed to international understanding by
preparing some attractive display panels that introduced the food culture of
Japan.

Finland
Ms Leena Hiillos was the teacher involved in the Finnish project with third-
grade pupils at a primary school. Her approach was characterized by the
use of man-made materials like clay, paper and waste materials as well as
leaves and other natural materials. The resulting work had subtle colour
tones. Basically, the pupils’ work produced depicted everyday meals in
Finland. Art is not taught as an independent subject in this country and
classroom teachers are responsible for art lessons.
The Philippines
In the Philippines, Ms Dino Marcelo organized a project around the theme
‘A Filipino Food Fiesta Lunch’ with fifth-grade pupils in a primary school.
The artistic aims for her lessons included ‘encouraging children “to use
their imagination to create food out of waste material”, “appreciating the
potential of paper craft” and learning associated techniques and skills’; and

they also included the instrumental aims of ‘informing people that art
enhances awareness of the environment’ and ‘thinking about the kind of
decision-making necessary to protect the global environment’.
Ms Marcelo’s approach was characterized by an emphasis on model-
making and the environmental theme of recycling. After they had partici-
pated in some games designed to develop knowledge of recycling, her
pupils learned about waste wood, folk art, fine art and some aesthetic
concepts. Then they were encouraged to create an art lunch using papier-
mâché techniques while consulting reference material on recycling, art and
typical Philippines dishes. The resulting work featured festival-related food
such as roasted pig (Lechon) and grilled squid (inihaw na pusit).

Germany
Dr Petra Weingart organized a project entitled ‘Eating Art’ for fourth-grade
pupils. After discussing what kinds of meals children in other countries eat,
these pupils were shown some relevant art works to boost ideas. A lot of time
was spent in the initial planning stages ensuring that they carefully thought
through ways of expressing meals they wanted to create. The teacher
offered them a diverse range of materials, including watercolour paint,
sawdust, pieces of wood, cloth, tennis balls, styrene foam, chalk and card-
board. The children analysed the presentation of meals prepared to entertain
guests so as to gain cultural insights into the design of table settings as
part of an art appreciation lesson.
Scotland
Ms Lindsay Brook from Scotland appealed to sixth-grade pupils to ‘create an
imaginative lunch for a foreign friend’. The starting point was to research
Japanese and Scottish cooking on the Internet and by other means to ‘find
meals that foreign friends are likely to enjoy’ and draw them with a view to
creating 3D models. Even though the project took place in a school with chil-
dren from a low socio-economic group and there were discipline problems,
it captured their imagination and enthusiasm and she successfully linked
development of drawing skills to the theme of creating an art lunch.
Denmark
At Vibenshus School in Denmark, Ms Ingrid Buhl’s approach to the art
lunch centred on how to use art-making to achieve new knowledge about a
common cultural artefact – the sandwich cake. The sandwich or ‘fancy
cake’ is loaded with cultural meanings in Danish everyday life where it is
used to celebrate birthdays (as in many other countries) and symbolizes
‘being together, having a good time and cosiness’. These cakes are a part of

city life and are displayed in bakery windows. There is no need to bake them
at home because everyone can go to a shop and buy one or become part of
city life by eating one in a cafe. The Danish fancy cake is loaded with associ-
ated ‘feel-good’ meanings and has a characteristic shape, material qualities,
texture and colours. The decoration has recognizable surface patterns with
specific motifs, repetitions and rhythms.
The third-grade pupils in this school investigated their cultural heritage
through producing fake cakes and learned about their sculptural forms, to

mix colours and sense material surfaces. The starting point was investigat-
ing a real cake and its material qualities – what the ingredients felt, smelt
and looked like. The next step was to collect pictures of cakes. The students
experiments with materials ended up with their using foam rubber for the
cake and whipped soap for cream. The pupils achieved in-depth formal
knowledge of the food this way. Then the finished cakes became props in
three tableaux in which the pupils acted out birthday celebrations, and
being confectioners and potential customers outside a bakery shop they
had set up in the classroom. These tableaux were photographed. The
pupils reflected on every aspect of the lessons and there was a continuous
dialectic between art practice and cultural learning; moreover, they learned
about a cultural symbol that is taken for granted in everyday life.
The project adopted an ethnographic approach that to researching a
visual cultural practice and its settings. The pupils, teacher and a researcher
shared ideas about common rituals associated with fancy cakes. Viewers
experienced few problems understanding the tableaux settings, suggesting
that the customs and rituals associated with the cakes are well understood.
Whereas this indicates how thoroughly they are integrated into Danish cul-
ture, it does not answer the question: ‘Why?’
Japan
Ms Masako Otsu from Amagasaki Municipal Muko-Kita Primary School in
Hyogo Prefecture led the project in Japan with fourth-grade pupils. Her
lessons had the title ‘Yummy Yummy 100%! Fake It, Copy It, My Special
Lunch’ and their main purposes are listed below.
• To motivate pupils to enjoy art learning and express their food culture
through art
• To expand their imagination through manipulating art materials


ETA_3.3_04_art_Fukumoto.qxd 12/13/07 9:39 AM Page 207
• To enable them to apply and develop their past experience and skills
• To develop awareness of each other’s artistic expression, abilities and
ways of manipulating materials
• To offer opportunities to exchange art works with foreign friends so as
to increase awareness and appreciation of the diversity of artistic expres-
sion in the world
Emphasis was placed on the effort pupils made to discover skilful ways of
‘creating authentic-looking food even though they are fake’. Because she
already knew lower-grade pupils were capable of creating rice balls and
other kinds of food in papier-mâché, Ms Otsu wanted these fourth-grade
pupils to discover their own way of combining materials to accurately
recreate the appearance of tasty food. She emphasized both aesthetic cri-
teria and gaining insights into Japanese culture when she talked about
the way they arranged the fake food in their lunch boxes and colour coor-
dination. She anticipated that knowing that children in other parts of the
world were making lunch boxes would facilitate her pupils’ awareness of
the beauty of everyday artefacts and of some ‘good points’ about
Japanese design.
To start with, the pupils were encouraged to develop their own ideas
for lunch boxes that made the invisible sense of ‘tastiness’ concrete. This
was followed by group brainstorming to elaborate ideas and select mate-
rials and techniques that would ensure the products would look authentic.
As a result, her pupils produced lunch boxes in various shapes, ranging
from a star to a tulip, maple leaf, crab and snowball. In developing them,
they thought about suitable partitions for arranging dishes such as fried
prawns, rice balls, broccoli and seaweed rolls tastefully alongside each
other.
The materials used to create the food included papier-mâché, egg and
fruit containers, shredded waste, aluminium containers, cloth, sand and
sawdust. The pupils were satisfied initially with creating shapes out of
papier-mâché and colouring them with watercolour. They then began to
compete with each other to develop techniques that made their work look
more authentic. They were stimulated by each other’s creative ideas leading
to a healthy process of trying to outwit each other.
When one pupil made a fried prawn using a combination of papier-
mâché and sawdust, there was an outcry of ‘Wow, that looks tasty!’ This led
others to try create the feeling of a wonderful taste in similar ways; includ-
ing using darker, increasing the amount of sawdust, for example, and
colouring sawdust in a vinyl bag to achieve a sprinkled effect and a ‘beauti-
fully browned’ appearance. Meanwhile, a piece of green cloth was trans-
formed into a cabbage, shredded netting used for fruit was transformed
forms sprinkled with sand were transformed into octopus balls.
Finally, all the products were arranged in the lunch boxes in a colour-
coordinated manner and displayed at an ‘exhibition of Japanese lunches’ on
the Internet for mutual appreciation. These pupils were excited by the
prospect of communicating with counterparts in other countries about
their work and exploring the cultural differences in their work via the
Internet as indicated by their desire to explain o-temoto (a small compli-
mentary dish) and the soy sauce containers that are unique to Japan.

Significance of the Art Lunch Project

As part of the Art Lunch Project, a questionnaire survey was conducted in
each country. Teachers were requested to collect children’s drawings of an
evening meal together with information about culturally specific food and
get them reflect on this. The intention was to increase awareness and
understanding of different styles of table setting and family culture and the
potential of the Art Lunch Project for individual artistic expression. Some
drawings were not returned for ethical reasons, but those collected featured
a diverse range of subject matter including single dishes, table settings and
conversation over the dinner table. Many children said that they ate with
other family members but a small number did so alone for various reasons.
The Art Lunch Project will be successful if these children reflect on their
own cultural identity and understand that many countries share similar
ways of life. The project is ongoing. Most of the artworks collected so far
have represented traditional national foods. The absence of imaginative or
visionary work suggests some weaknesses in the lesson instructions. But
all the participating teachers have evaluated the exchanges positively in
terms of art practice.
The children appear to have gained confidence through associating food
with national culture. Imagining children of a similar age recreating national
dishes elsewhere must have made them think about life in foreign coun-
tries. Through creating their own artwork some of them may have learned
to take pride in and value their culture more and become more aware of
differences in cultures and expressions of others. Working in a global space
rather than the closed space of the classroom has brought them into contact
with the invisible. Even though the timing of the project has differed slightly
from country to country, the almost real-time viewing of their own work on
the Internet and that of foreign children has made reflection on art activities
and mutual appreciation more real. Additionally, participant children have
experienced the joy of sharing ideas in time and space. A recurring com-
ment from the participant teachers was that wrestling with the same theme
engendered a sense of competition in them and their pupils and this added
to the value of the collaboration and exchange.
Conclusions
Education through art implies international understanding through art.
Although international exchanges of practical work in classrooms are diffi-
cult because of language barriers, artistic expression communicates across
national boundaries. This makes it a valuable tool for intercultural commu-
nication. These exchanges between Japanese and foreign children consti-
tute a first step in education for peace informed by the shared
understanding that we are all human and that the starting point is to recog-
nize heterogeneity.
Participant details
Kinichi Fukumoto, Associate Dean, Joint Graduate School, Hyogo
University of Teacher Education (Japan). E-mail: fukumo@art.hyogo-u.ac.jp
Masako Ohtsu, Art specialist, Amagasaki City Mukokita Elementary
School (Japan).

Teresa Eça, Researcher, Paulo Freire Research Centre, University of Evara

(Portugal).
Emilia Lopes, Art teacher, Escola ‘A Ribeirinha’ (Portugal).
Petra Weingart, Art education researcher, teacher in primary and
secondary-modern schools (Germany).
Barbara Ebner-Federlein, Teacher of needlework, arts and crafts, Grund-
und Hauptschule Bergrheinfeld (Germany).
Martina Paatela-Nieminen, Postdoctoral researcher, School of Art
Education, Academy of Finland, University of Art and Design (Finland).
Leena Hiillos, Classroom teacher, Pukinmaki Elementary School (Finland).
Ayse Cakir Ilhan, Associate professor, Department of Elementary
Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Ankara University (Turkey).
Dilek Acer, Lecturer, Department of Pre-school Education, Faculty of
Educational Sciences, Ankara University (Turkey).
Marjan Prevodnik, Senior art education adviser, National Education
Institute (Slovenia).
Marjana Prevodnik, Classroom teacher, Hinko Smrekar Elementary
School (Slovenia).
Lourdes K. Samson, Associate professor, Humanities Department,
Miriam College (Philippines).
Dina Marcelo, Elementary art teacher, Grade School, Art Department,
Miriam College (Philippines).
Sandra Ewing, Art lecturer, Department of Creative and Aesthetic
Studies, University of Strathclyde (Scotland, UK).
Lindsay Brock, Art teacher, Windlaw Primary School (Scotland, UK).
Mie Buhl, Associate professor, head of Department of Educational
Anthropology, the Danish University of Education (Denmark).
Ingrid Buhl, Art teacher, Vibenshus School (first to ninth grade)
(Denmark).
Suggested citation
Fukumoto, K. (2007), ‘Art Lunch Project: an international collaboration among art
teachers’, International Journal of Education through Art 3: 3, pp. 195–209.
doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.195/1

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ETA_3.3_05_art_Linnap.qxd 12/17/07 8:38 PM Page 211

Images and fear: Repressed pictures as

tools for analysing society
Peeter Linnap Tartu Art College Estonia
Abstract Keywords
This article discusses societal attitudes to images, concentrating on photographs. Image theory
What may or may not be photographed communicates a lot about a society. As Photography
the ability to take photographs increases, with ever more digital devices capable Estonia
of capturing images, so do various restrictions. These restrictions are connected Social values
with the deep fears images can engender. Using examples from Estonia, this Fear
article demonstrates that while photographic images continue to have the
power to shock, the way and extent to which this happens depends on the par-
ticular contexts in which they are created and interpreted.
Introduction
In every culture there are certain images that make people feel uncomfort-
able or fearful. Indeed we could go further and propose that there are whole
fields of socio-cultural reality that, according to social norms, should not be
recorded via images or, at least, such images should not be shown publicly.
Images in general, and more particularly those that are referential or repre-
sentational, are removed from but also link what is private, restricted
and/or illegal to what is in the public sphere. People who make images are
often considered dangerous therefore or, at the very least, disturbing. Since
they are aware of this, many artists and other sorts of image-makers today
are afraid to create certain kinds of images. An otherwise healthy interest in
image-making – the will to spontaneously depict scenes, events, subjects
and objects – is often visited by unconscious fears and an endless need for
reassurance. As recently as 6 September 2007, Breidenbacher (2007) wrote
in a US newspaper,
Fair boss saw smoke, and put out photo. Even a blue ribbon didn’t exempt a
photo from the state fair’s tobacco ban. Her name was Betty and she found
herself at a Super Bowl party in Oswego, wearing nothing but a pair of
Pittsburgh Steelers boxer shorts. Someone put a cigarette between her lips.
The picture won a blue ribbon in the New York State Fair’s 2007 Photography
Exhibition.
Here is another example.
The new White Plains Building Department Policy of requiring persons asking
to see a site plan to fill out a questionnaire asking why they want to examine
the plan, and prohibiting photographing of site plans in the Building Department

as WPCNR was prevented from doing last week, violates the Freedom of
Information Law, according to Robert Freeman, Chair of the New York State
Committee on Open Government.
(Bailey, 2007)
A recent blog comment in the Sidney Morning Herald raised similar issues but
in a more personal way.
In January, while on leave, I started photographing people who were climbing

up the rocks at Wattamolla Beach, in the Royal National Park, and jumping
off. I got four frames away over ten minutes or so, as I was keeping an eye on
my son swimming nearby, and then I copped an earful. ‘Take a picture of my
daughter and I’ll rip ya f___ing head off.’ Here we go again I thought… I
explained that I was just shooting people jumping off the cliff and that my
lens included everything from that tree to that rock. ‘Yeah, and if you take a
picture of my daughter I’ll I’ll rip ya f___ing head off.
(Reid, 2007)
Many similar examples can easily be found. Even though some of the loca-
tions differ they confirm that the astonishing multitude of places where taking
photographs is disallowed is increasing (compare Jay, 1984; Staples, 2000;
Ruby, 2007).
This article aims:

• To show that some phenomena within the dichotomy of images and fear
are far from explicit; rather they are contextual and have to be dealt with
through verbal descriptions, analysis, contextualizing, etc.
• To exemplify some of these phenomena at greater length using Estonian
case studies. Through considering Estonia’s totalitarian past mixed with
a neo-liberal present, it should be possible to discover both different
and common features of images and fear.
• To demonstrate that art is no longer a major locus of feared images
today.
• To draw attention to general confusion in the sphere of image ethics.
I have chosen the medium of photography for most of the examples. This is
not a chance decision: photography is the field I have studied in greatest
detail and it has been interrelated with the questions of fear, and dread,
what it is/is not permissible to depict. The timeframe for the examples is
rather broad as I am above all trying to trace the complexity of these issues.
The examples span almost half a century. As well as domestic or autobio-
graphical photographs, other types of vernacular photography are considered,
and there are a few examples from film.
Images in society: restrictions

There are a growing number of spaces where photography is forbidden:
corporate areas, business parks and even trading centres or restaurants. In
addition, there is land that it has long been illegal to enter, such as military
212 Peeter Linnap

zones. To make matters worse, a recent American ban on photographing

or filming on all public transportation exceeds any reasonable limits to
basic human freedom. In most such cases, the reasons for prohibiting
pictorial representation are unclear. Typically these regulations are justified
through weird notions of safety or privacy, and one can only guess what is
behind them. It seems that a new wave of anti-picture-making hysteria
reached its height with the tragic events of 9/11 in New York City. But it is
also clear that people using it as an excuse to exercise control over civil-
ians distorted this event. This is strange given that recent developments in
visual technologies have produced miniature cameras in cellular phones
that make it impossible to prevent people taking photos. Moreover, these
technological developments render any notion of guaranteeing privacy
entirely absurd.
People sometimes express concern about why they have been photo-
graphed. This anxiety is both psychoanalytical at root and related to social
norms and regulations about pictorial representation. It interrelates with
concerns about social standing and status, gender, age and many other
variables. Most personal restrictions on pictorial representation concern
visual aspects of identity. When we ‘take’ a person’s image what we really
face is a mixture of both psychological and socially determined factors that
cause image-making to be problematic; problematic because social regula-
tions about image-making in public have never been successfully fixed in
law and often remain arbitrary.
An alarming number of institutional barriers to image-making have
been built into every socio-political regime, driven by irrational urges. In
his book Everyday Surveillance, Staples (2000: 140) included the vendor’s
master database which provides details of websites that have been
deemed ‘unacceptable, inappropriate, or undesirable’ to access. The list
includes the following categories: ‘abortion advocacy, activist groups,
adult entertainment, alcohol/tobacco, alternative journals, cult/New Age,
drugs, entertainment, gambling, games, gay/lesbian lifestyles, hacking,
illegal, job search, militancy, personals/dating, politics (advocacy of any
type), racism/ hate, religion, sex, shopping, sports, tasteless, travel, user
defined, vehicles, violence, weapons, web chat’. What else is this surreal list
of prohibitions other than an arbitrary enforcement of some new, incom-
prehensible normality?
As mentioned above, the list of places where pictorial representation is
prohibited, or not recommended, is very long and this leads to a simple,
albeit fundamental question. If certain locations are considered private
property, i.e. owned by private or corporate bodies, are images of such enti-
ties an extension of such ownership? Or to put it more simply, is a video
recording, a photograph or even a drawing of a house automatically the
property of the house owner (Tagg, 1988)? Although this kind of question
has been posed before (Haggerty & Ericson, 2006), there has never been a
simple answer. Since the laws about it, that vary from country to country,
have tended to be rather liberal, particular cases have required different
solutions. Chaos continues in the formal regulations between ownership
and its representation.
Images and fear: Repressed pictures as a tool for analysing society 213
Figure 1: Mari Laanemets. Untitled. (Installation view). 1997
Fear in the field of vision – art as a territory of excuses

In parallel, late capitalist societies have demonstrated considerable hostility
towards contemporary critical or analytical art. It would be easy to write a his-
tory of prohibited artworks from a national and international perspective and
compile a history of anti-art from an ethical point of view. Such books
already exist (McEvilley, 2005). However, there is a more fundamental prob-
lem lurking behind the curtains of the art-fear discussion. Rather than creat-
ing a list of what exactly we are afraid of in art, we should pose quite a
different question: namely, when are artworks, actions or artists to be
feared? Perhaps there is no single answer; though some general statements
are possible. The first appears to correlate with a certain default under-
standing of information perceived to be artistic.
Artistic information is rarely produced so as to bring about practical
ends. Although in the 1990s the most radical artists did produce a number
of works that clearly exceeded this limitation (Hans Haacke, Alfredo Jaar,
etc.). These were minor voices, unable to redefine how art is understood. In
his groundbreaking piece Shapolsky Real Estate Holdings. For example,
Haacke presented statistical data in the form of an artwork. Although he
intended to display this work in art(ist) spaces, he failed. As Haacke
(1996, p. 72) himself states, (writing about himself in the third person):
Thomas Messer, the director of the Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum,

rejected this and two other works, which were all, made for a scheduled one-
person exhibition at the Guggenheim museum. Messer cancelled the exhibition
six weeks before the opening, when the artist refused to withdraw the disputed
works. Messer called them ‘inappropriate’ for exhibition at the museum and
stated that he had to fend off ‘an alien substance that had entered the art
museum organism’. Edward F. Fry, the curator of the exhibition, was fired when
he defended the works.
214 Peeter Linnap

Several other art venues refused to show this piece and it failed to bring
about further dialogue between art and other spheres of human activity.
In these kinds of examples, what could otherwise be interesting juxta-
positions tend to remain in the realm of intra-art communication. Where
essentially serious questions are at stake and there are serious goals to
achieve it seems the nomenclature ‘art’ devalues and disarms. As soon as
(any kind of) painful or fearful image is connected with the notion of art, it
is almost guaranteed that its potential to be taken seriously will not be
fully achieved. The concept of the artist as a gambler (Homo ludens) might
be a factor here. Another obvious reason why art lacks credibility is because
popular art forms define and characterize fears and horror through very
explicit means. To put it another way, film and television have defined
their own ways of representing fear, that do not resort to representations
of everyday experience. It seems that art is no longer a major locus for
fearful images.
Explicit triviality of trauma photographs: some case studies

Of course, this is not to say people are no longer afraid of images. If we
focus our attention on more modest small-scale, fearful images that con-
nect with personal experience, it soon becomes clear they generate fear in
far more significant ways than the explicit clichés the horror industries pro-
duce. I will give some examples now to illustrate this point.
A little girl is repeatedly looking at snapshots of uncles and aunts,
grandmothers and grandfathers from family albums. She feels that
something is strange or not right. The majority of the people depicted in
the snapshots have passed on and it is hard for her to understand why
pictures of people who have departed this life are preserved. The girl
Figure 2: Mari Laanemets. Untitled. (Scratched album photograph). 1997
grabs a pair of scissors and starts to restore the world, to conform to

truth: if someone is no longer here, their picture cannot be either, other-
wise it would be a lie. The girl scrapes the faces of all deceased persons
off the photos (Linnap, 1997, pp. 57–59) (Figure 2). This extraordinary
example reveals the compensatory function of photographs in real life:
They attempt to hide the absence of someone or something; and they
try to replace it with a symbolic, hence surrogate presence of self.
Another example is borrowed from Mark Romanek’s 2002 film One Hour
Photo, where the lonely Seymour Parrish, nicknamed Sy, who is seem-
ingly locked in another world, is employed in a photo laboratory. For
him, the work not only involves developing films, but also caring for
valuable moments stored on film. Sy is especially interested in the
Yorkins family. Through photos, he grows familiar with their holidays,
informal moments and Jake’s childhood. It turns out that Sy’s interest in
the Yorkins is pathological: over the past eleven years he has made
copies of family photos and followed the progress of their lives while his
own life has been utterly ruined.
Images from Estonia’s recent history

Let us now consider some more personal examples. As an Estonian, I come
from a specific socio-historical background in which the most traumatic and
fearful events took place when the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic countries
in the 1940s. For a long time this period was excluded from official history and
especially image history. It is easy to see why images were hushed up during
the Soviet occupation; but harder to understand why they have not been redis-
covered and widely shown over the past sixteen years since Estonia became
independent. The period itself was extremely rich in all sorts of events and
change. In 1940, the Soviets marched across the border with almost no resis-
tance from the local inhabitants. During the following few years:
• Somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people escaped from Estonia

by sea, using whatever means of transportation was at hand.
• Some were enlisted in foreign armies on either the German or Soviet
side.
• Some hid in the forest as partisans for almost ten years and formed a
rather non-systematic resistance movement known as the ‘forest brothers’.
• Some were taken to deportation camps in Siberia.
It shocks people to recall these collective, traumatic events and often ren-
ders them speechless, even today. So perhaps it is not so surprising that pic-
tures of this old diaspora slowly started to become public in the late 1990s.
Eric Soovere’s published photo-based diary from the 1940s reveals subtle,
vibrant records of the places he passed through on his journey of escape
(Figure 3). The last stop on Estonian soil was followed by Stettin, Altdamm,
Augsburg and other German and Sudeten German places, some without
names (Soovere, 1999). He does not criticize or evaluate them: they only have
‘we were here’ meaning for him. They form stages and a background for
major and minor characters in his story: the author in the mountains of
Sudetenland; sleeping on the top of a railway carriage; Red emissaries calling
the refugees back home; barracks; milk queues; cultural and sports events, etc.
216 Peeter Linnap

Figure 3: Eric Soovere. Registration of Refugees on the board of German

military ship “Lappland”. 27.09.1944.
These photographs present a fleeting yet kaleidoscopic view of a world where

nothing was secure or permanent (Figure 4). By contrast, when Soovere
spoke about the traumatic experience the diary recalled, he chose to concen-
trate on other images. After the war he moved to the United States and has
lived there ever since and the locus of trauma for him was embedded in the
pictures of his former farmhouse in the Estonian countryside (which was lost
forever). As someone who lived in occupied Estonia, there is nothing very
special or gripping about this image for me. From my point of view, a different
image would be traumatic: for example, a last photograph of the boat that
took a part of Estonia’s population away from their homeland forever.
Pictures by Donald Koppel are another example. Of Estonian descent,
Koppel lived in Miami, Florida until his death in 2005. During the Second
World War, he started to take photographs (Carr and Linnap, 2006). His
experience was typical of many Estonians: first he was in the Estonian Army,
then in a Russian and German camp. Koppel was not an official front corre-
spondent and as a consequence was not restricted by rules about what to
photograph and how. His camera recorded Russian war ships in Tallinn and
Estonian men in Waffen-SS uniforms. None of these images are exceptional;
the war is just disorder and chaos, albeit exceptional enough to be docu-
mented. Conspicuous among Koppel’s imagery is the eastern Estonian town
Narva (Figure 5). The post-1944 bombed Renaissance town looms in front of
the camera as a hideous, inimitable desert. The image of a town that was lit-
erally erased and reduced to heaps of rubbish and awful mounds of stone
makes a powerful, emotional impression. Although rumours about the total
devastation of Narva were quite widespread in Estonia, Koppel’s photographs
impinge on us doubly now: the corroboration of hitherto propositional
Figure 4: Eric Soovere. The former mobilized Estonian soldiers had to sleep on
the roofs of the trains. June 1944 on the way to Augsburg refugee camp,
Germany. It was the beginning of the further sufferings for these people,
because in the following “screenings” in the camps they were separated from
their fellow contrymen.
information unfolds in front of our eyes. Moreover, there are other interpre-
tations that enhance the emotional force of these photos. In the political/
geographical subconscious of Estonia today, the territory of Narva (like all of
eastern Virumaa) is not-entirely-ours. Will it ever be again?
Figure 5: Donald Koppel. Narva after bombing by Russians, March 1944.
218 Peeter Linnap

Figure 6: Kaljo-Olev Veskimägi. So the deportation of Estonians began.

A child´s snapshot from the home window, 1945.
Let us next consider a picture shot by a child over a windowsill (Figure 6).
It depicts the most traumatic event ever in Estonian history – the forced
deportations to Siberia in the 1940s and 1950s. This little, foggy, troubling
snapshot depicts what is probably the most painful part of the deportation-
camp narrative: arresting people right in their homes.
To reconstruct the circumstances, in which that little snapshot was
taken, is to confront a deep fear. To be caught photographing under these
circumstances was tantamount to facing the death penalty, and it was taken
by a child! No wonder, then, that the amateur photographer only dared to
publish this image in 2005; the trauma was so troubling, so deep, that the
photographer avoided making it public for many decades.
A further example comes from a family I know who were deported to
Siberia for ten years. Family members always fell silent when people referred
to this ‘interlude’ in their lives. It was only when the effects of alcohol made
them somewhat more talkative that some of them delved, ever so slightly,
into their memories. Although the family took over 1,500 pictures during
those ten years they did their best to erase the decade 1949–59 from con-
sciousness and turned over numerous photographs to a relative, a student of
photography. The pictures taken were of what, under those circumstances,
were ordinary events. People undertaking forced forest labour; a man sleeping
on top of an excavator digging bucket, or play-acting the same scene for the
purposes of an image. Snapshots of desolate and sparsely developed Soviet
remote settlements follow. In some pictures, the snow is melting. Someone is
being buried. People are sitting at long tables. Nowhere does the eye catch
anything that is fearful or traumatic. But this only provokes additional ques-
tions. Do pictures like this really cover the multitude of (partly unpleasant)
experiences (Figures 7–10 & 15–16)? What if they were taken to cover up the
grim realities that people were going through during this decade? Maybe
there were other images that were hidden, lost, confiscated, destroyed?
Figure 7: Unknown photographer. In this kind of railway cars thousands of

Estonians were transported to Siberia. (Photograph from the book: Mart
Laar. “Forest Brothers”. Tallinn, 1993).
I want to add three more examples from the 1990s, when Estonia was
once again an independent state. One is by Jüri Liim who risked his life
filming such subjects as the illegal presence of Soviet troops or corpses of
murdered liberation fighters (Figure 11). The others are images by the con-
ceptual artist Peeter Tooming, who compared pictures of the same places
and objects taken in 1937 and 1987 (Figures 12–13).
220 Peeter Linnap

Figure 8: Unknown photographer. Thousands of Estonians were transported

to Siberia in this kind of railway car. (Photograph from the book: “Estonians:
The years of Suffering” Tallinn, 1943).
Absent images and imagination

Whilst acknowledging that horrifying pictures can induce fear, trauma and
pain, it is the case that we become more fearful where images are totally
absent or scarce. In such cases, the psyche starts to project far more horrific
mental representations of dread. Is it the case that images can liberate us
from chimaeras and phantasms that otherwise would torture the personal or
collective mind? Parallels can be drawn with phenomena that continuously
Figure 9: Ants Leitmäe. “From family photographs in Siberia” 1949–1959.
Figure 10: Ants Leitmäe. “From family photographs in Siberia” 1949–1959.
occupy and trouble mass consciousness. In most cases, these are events or
beings that are not or are poorly covered by images. If ‘perfect’ images of
the mass media’s favourite, enigmatic topics existed (UFOs abominable
snowmen and various sorts of monsters for example), they would no longer
be featured. They remain interesting only as long as something is unre-
solved, unclear, not seen well enough.
Questions with few answers

To summarize, we have yet to confront a number of difficult questions and
propositions. Is it ever possible to visually represent fear, or in doing so, do
we merely depict scenes that relate to fear in indirect, personal ways? This
leads to the understanding that fear or horror is topologically situated and
rooted in unfamiliar territory. What if the very act of producing a specific
representation is just a way of negating fear? If this is the case, every act of
representing fear could be interpreted as a therapy for the traumatic hiatus
associated with death.
At this point a comparison of language and image is called for. A number
of phenomenological studies have noted that, in a state of fear, language
stops. In psychoanalytical methodology, language functions as a tool for
getting rid of fear. Bur what happens to visual perception and imagination
in a state of fear? Do images, like language, cease to exist? Are they blocked,
repressed? Would it ever be possible to use images to rid ourselves of fear?
In seeking answers to these questions, it becomes clearer how different
images and language really are. First, anyone who recalls a frightening
experience remembers above all a plenitude of imaginary visions. In these
abundant images, people probably try to imagine the source of the fear.
Since strategies for survival are at stake here, this kind of image processing
222 Peeter Linnap

Figure 11: Jüri Liim. Illegal presence of Soviet military troops in Estonia: training
centre for submarine crew at Paldiski, 1992. Videostill.
takes place almost instantly: fast enough to be inaccessible through lan-

guage, but ideal for visual representation.
If images merely represent aspects of traumatic experience and fear, the
question arises how do they stand in relation to these phenomena? Is the
relationship entirely arbitrary or personal? Or to turn the whole problem
upside down: are images by themselves capable of evoking traumas and
generating fear?
Figure 12: Peeter Tooming and Carl Sarap. From “55 Years Later”. 1937/1992.
Kunda, Estonia, 1937.
On factual information and image ethics

In order to begin to resolve this problem, we need to find out if images
are merely statements, or if some of them can be understood as proposi-
tions? In a general sense, images are rarely equal to propositions, and
factual information can always be attributed to them using verbal text.
But it is the poor state of current knowledge about visual grammar that is
the issue isn’t it? Investigations into phenomena known as ‘documentary
turns’ (the messages contained in interpretations) have shown they have
at least some features in common with visual argument. The perpendicular
positioning of a camera in front of subjects and objects asserts we are
dealing with factual information, i.e. a statement that at least has the
potential to be a proposition. Although the era when a language of images
was disputed is over, we cannot entirely avoid drawing certain parallels
between the two.
One notable feature of traumatic or fearful images is that we try to avoid
them. Or, to put it more correctly, we try to escape our own reactions that
particular images could provoke.
224 Peeter Linnap

Figure 13: Peeter Tooming and Carl Sarap. From “55 Years Later”. 1937/1992.
Kunda, Estonia, 1992.
The discourse generated by these issues is known as ethics; or more

precisely, image-ethics (Gross, Katz & Ruby, 1988). The latter has tended to
be rather loose and in most cases consists of a set of moral norms or basic
regulations applied mainly to public representations. Sex, death, violence and
other such matters have been at the heart of these kinds of institutionalized
regulations, and not much else. But what counts as image ethics today –
and how it has changed with the coming of new media and altered modes
of representation – has yet to be determined (Long, 1999). It is important
to note, that there is probably greater control over the publication of images
than ever before. Again, the issue of public availability of the personal
details of ordinary people has been debated with considerable foreboding
in the media. The desire to prioritize issues of safety and privacy; however,
it is hard not to see arguments for the hyperactive selling of the private
realm today as being in the interests of multinational news corporations and
entertainment businesses.
Art and fear: some observations

So far, I have deliberately avoided much discussion of the domain of art.
The grim reality is that art, either in a more restricted, old-fashioned
Figure 14: Peeter Linnap. From “Concealed Landscapes”(Deserted USSR

Rocket-base) 1988
sense – or a newer, all-embracing one– has become a minor field of visual

production. The use of the word ‘minor’ is not intended to imply that art is
redundant, rather that its impact and influence has decreased and become
minimal. Artists ceased to concern themselves with creating beauty and
bestowing aesthetic pleasure a long time ago. Instead their art became a
form of therapy for psyches disabled by late capitalist ways of living and
began to function as a critical tool for researching society (Figure 14). We
know these ideas have been widely accepted, but at the same time we can-
not deny art is losing its identity. It is no wonder that art education today is
confused about its aims. There is no consensus around the concept of the
arts anymore, nor is there agreement about what their major functions
should be, hence it is really hard to guide art education in any particular
direction. But this could also be seen as a positive shift.
One of the first things that we thought about when this era that we call post-
modernism began to happen, one of the first words that was used to describe
it was pluralism. And I’ve always felt personally committed to pluralism. That
there should be a variety of approaches and that any one of these variety of
approaches should be regarded as OK as long as none of them attains an
hegemonic position and represses others because that happened in the
modernist Kantian tradition…
(Sarapuu, 2003, p. 46)
This is clearly demonstrated in the work of younger artists today (Figure 1):
in every sort of new ‘conservative’ painting and occasional, irritating revisits
226 Peeter Linnap

Figure 15: An instrument found in KGB “interview-office”. (Photograph

from the book: “Estonians: The years of Suffering” Tallinn, 1943).
Figure 16: Title: Left: A Forest brotherhood partisan guarding the Peenjärve
camp in Virumaa (north-east Estonia); right hidden entrances to the forest
brotherhood’s underground caves.
of modernist classics. I have a feeling that what was once called anti-art (be
it dada or postmodern) had an ethical function and that a lot of it was con-
nected to fear. One manifestation of this could simply be the destabilizing
impact of art on our consciousness. Unfortunately it appears that this is
being lost in the new liberal, risk-averse society. Nevertheless, our fears
remain. They are used by governments, media, education and the law and
are more real than ever. In other words, fear is genuine, and that is why art-
works based on fear are usually genuine as well. It would be nice to think
that artists will continue to be able to invent and rediscover new ways of
expressing fear out of the exhausted clichés of the mass media. Yet the fact
that a number of influential societies have come to prefer art that entertains
and support safe art is a telling indication that its power lies dormant.
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Suggested citation
Linnap, P. (2007), ‘Images and fear: Repressed pictures as a tool for analysing
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Contributor details
Peeter Linnap is professor and head of the Photography Department of Tartu Art
College. His Ph.D. research ‘Photology’ carried out in the University of Tartu
Semiotics and Cultural Theory Department was a systematic analysis of photography,
based on Jurji Lotman’s concept of semiosphere. The author of more than 500
essays, research-based and critical writings, his artwork and texts have been pub-
lished in many journals including Art in America, Art and Design, Neue Bildende Kunst,
Aperture and European Photography. Contact: Paasiku 4-128, 13916 Tallinn, Estonia.
Email: peeter@linnap.com
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ETA_3.3_06_Art_Rautkorpi 12/11/07 7:58 PM Page 231

Mentoring in the creative economy

Tiina Rautkorpi, Helsinki Polytechnic, Finland
Abstract Keywords
Finland is among those countries leading research into the creative economy mentoring
and co-configuration. A new economy preoccupied with intangible values and culture
cultural meaning-making is being promoted in Finnish business and industry. meaning
This article argues that traditions of mentoring in business and education have creative economy
much to offer in creating the necessary conditions for the new forms of work education
needed in this context. Mentoring as an area is ripe for development in art edu-
cation also where attempts are under way to break down existing boundaries
between the economy, society and the arts.
Introduction
My starting point is the tradition of mentoring in western societies. Historically
this has been linked to a master–apprentice relationship; on the other hand,
there has always been interest in it in manager training (Juusela, Lillia &
Rinne, 2000; Keski-Luopa, 2001.). Mentoring occurs during academic
supervision in university studies (particularly in postgraduate research
training) where the focus is initiation into a particularly demanding pro-
fession – that of researcher or master of research (Aittola, 1995).
Widespread public debate about mentoring started in the field of work
counselling and supervision during the 1970s and 1980s. There were many
publications on mentoring at work in the 1990s. Another starting point is the
Finnish context for promoting a creative economy. By a creative economy I
refer to a society with an economy that is based on cultural networking and
continuous meaning-making.
I will begin with existing research. There is a great deal of ‘futures
research’ in Finland, which currently has one of the world’s largest academic
research units in this field. The multidisciplinary Finland Futures Research
Centre was established in 1992 to carry out projects in the areas of foresight,
environment, innovation, creativity, culture and the knowledge society.
This kind of research focuses strongly on the future characteristics of
mature, postmodern societies. Prosperous industrialized societies have long
since entered an era in which the basic necessities of life are readily available.
In western societies subscribing to the ‘old’ capitalist theory of economics,
the exchange value of a commodity was considered more important than its
use value. In today’s postmodern societies, what are called intangible values
are as (or more) important than tangible values in generating new areas for
consumption. In futures research the term ‘intangible values’ refers to values
closely connected with things like knowledge, welfare or building and preserv-
ing human relationships. Intangible values are very important in the context
of postmodern consumption.

Meaning-making societies
Given that an increasingly large share of the value of products is intangible
this is necessarily intertwined with culture. The cultural characteristics of
products and services have become a central issue in consumption to the
extent that they are no longer bought for their practical value but because of
associated cultural meanings. Nobody buys a particular brand of cheese, or
becomes a slave to fashion, merely in order to survive.
According to futures research, mentoring and work counselling are
essential within new creative economies in which the work culture is largely
based on added intangible value. They require:
• Skills of co-configuration that enable collaboration between customers and

employees in a range of fields. These skills form the starting point for
designing user-focused products and services.
• A meaningful society that capitalises on arenas of interpersonal encounters.
When researchers speak of a network society gradually replacing an
information society, they stress that such encounters happen globally
and are not tied to particular places as in tribal societies. A major share
of actual production in a creative economy consists of products that
promote encounters or encounter services.
Markku Wilenius, professor of futures studies, has repeatedly stressed that

creative economies require three kinds of skill dimension in order to
develop cultural know-how:
1. A new type of craftsmanship: the design and realization ability of cre-

ative artisans and artists to create interesting, distinctive, aesthetic
products;
2. Cultural literacy: the ability to ‘read’ different ethnic, regional and organi-
zational cultures and sub-cultures;
3. A new type of leadership culture suited to guiding creative experts and
enabling production and take-up of innovative solutions (Wilenius,
2004, pp. 57–60).
The cultural production of meanings is the shared frame of reference for the
entire work process. At the same time, the new forms and organizations of
labour and coping require that each employee is able to master increasingly
broad sections of the work process. An IT professional working in service
management or office networking, or someone with a job in educational plan-
ning and management for example, must be able to manage the whole work
process from start to finish. Traditional superior/subordinate distinctions are
no longer relevant for work based in co-configuration requiring a very high
degree of self-determination (Huhtala, 2004).
Pragmatist aesthetics
According to Richard Shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics encompasses the
whole of life (Shusterman, 1992, 2000). Scholars in this field stress that art
history is made here and now and all the time. For Shusterman, art exists
everywhere, and pragmatist aesthetics plays a central role in creative post-
modern economies. As with other important aestheticians, his starting
232 Tiina Rautkorpi

point is aesthetic experience, the fact that humans are touched and moved
by aesthetic qualities.
Postmodern, network societies are characterized by cultural diversity and
dialogue containing hypertext, discontinuity and new combinations of mean-
ing. According to pragmatist aesthetics such conditions exist in interpersonal
encounters, and genius and style are continuously manifested in emergent
practices in daily life. In postmodern societies, aesthetics is linked to modes
of self-expression and self-branding like dressing up. We all have potential to
be performing artists and enjoy the means of producing aesthetic experi-
ences. Shusterman (Ibid) suggests that these increased opportunities for self-
expression protect us from the threat of mechanization.
Pragmatist aesthetics understand modern culture as one of encounters.
A cultural return to encounters between performers and spectators also
implies revisiting the theatrical stage and using ancient drama techniques
(Reitala & Heinonen, 2001). According to drama theory, genuine presence is
the essential, shared characteristic of self-expression as realized in perfor-
mance – the present moment, the here and now, that always includes a
potential starting-out in some direction. In other words, an individual
scene in a drama always contains the seeds of its own future.
Many books and articles on mentoring tell the same story of its
origins:
According to Greek mythology Ulysses, the King of Ithaca, gave his son
Telemachus to the care of the goddess Pallas Athene, as he went to wage war
in Troy. Athene disguised herself as Mentor, an old friend of Ulysses. Homer
says that Mentor’s task was to help and guide young Telemachus and prepare
him for the task that he had received at birth. The story describes the Greeks’
belief that the relationship between a young person and his or her senior
relies on the fundamental principle of human survival: we learn skills, cus-
toms and values directly from a person that we look up to and respect.
(Juusela, Lillia & Rinne, 2000, p.14)
From its inception, therefore, mentoring has been closely entwined with
drama. From a developmental and educational point of view, the new net-
work society needs arenas for personal encounters in which meanings in
formation remain in a state of potential coming-into-being.
The interviews
In the following section I will discuss ideas about mentoring that emerged
from interviews with three people with lengthy careers in creative fields
who have been mentors/supervisors. Two of them worked in mass-media
companies and were thoroughly familiar with the master-apprentice tradi-
tion that has been embedded in art education for a long time. They believe
this tradition will be useful in the future, provided it is modified and
extended in certain ways.
My first interviewee was Ms Ria Karhila, editor for the Finnish Broadcasting
Company and other independent production companies and a freelance
director. From time to time she has prepared visual-arts and media-arts stu-
dents for careers in radio and television. She told me she views them as
novice colleagues in art. She is convinced that they need to work closely
Mentoring in the creative economy 233

with adults already working in the field and understands the mentor-actor
relationship as two-sided. The mentor who shares in the youthful energy of
the student is privileged to be in the frontline of development and hears the
student’s dreams and visions.
My second interviewee, Mr Mikko Bruun, directs a corporate strategy
office at the Finnish Broadcasting Company. His work as development
manager of radio operations since the mid-1990s has included division
management, producer training and voluntary-work counselling groups.
Mr Bruun has been a journalist and lecturer in Finland and Sweden and
worked for UNESCO. He explained that new forms of leadership training
and work counselling were being initiated at the Finnish Broadcasting
Company because of fundamental changes in the social environment. He
pointed out that modernity, a time of continuity, has given way to an era of
discontinuity and mobile, multi-personal audiences. The disruption of the
entire cultural paradigm is affecting the nature of the work and personal
skills required of every employee.
My third interviewee, Mr Eero Holstila, is in charge of municipal policy
for business and industry and his job is to attract businesses to the capital
region. Finnish businesses have pioneered the use of mentoring to meet
the needs of creative economies. Nowadays public policy supporting busi-
ness is increasingly conducted by federations of municipalities and is linked
to adult education to ensure that the workforce develops appropriate skills.
Until the beginning of 2006, Eero Holstila was managing director of
Culminatum, a centre of expertise for the Helsinki region. The centre, which
encourages contact between universities and the world of work, effects new
combinations of expertise by linking the best know-how in public adminis-
tration, business and higher education. The expressed focus of its innova-
tion strategy for 2005 was promoting the creative economy by supporting
inclusion of cultural meanings in planning the operating environment of
residents.
Culminatum and its associates, such as the Forum Virium Helsinki that
supports digital services in the region, understand the creative economy as
a means to increasing well-being. Culminatum has developed and imple-
mented partnership programmes for small and medium-sized enterprises
and uses mentoring to exchange and support expertise. Eero Holstila told
me he has studied clusters of new, knowledge-intensive fields in several
countries. He pointed out that representatives of creative fields often speak
of knowledge clusters and creative campuses and explained that he does
not think creativity is independent of time and space. It requires long-term
personal interaction in order to flourish.
Creativity and diversity

According to futures research a newer fragmented production process is
developing side by side with the creative economy. Because traditional
industrial value chains are being dismantled and broken down into sec-
tions, the production of a given product or service requires a much smaller
ownership in the entire value chain. In an economy of this kind, the quality
of even the smallest sub-processes is defined by cultural meanings.
If we think of an everyday kitchen appliance like a pasta machine, it is no
longer enough for it just to make pasta. We need a machine suited to ‘a tall
234 Tiina Rautkorpi

sporty man’, designed in colours that young couples living in cities favour
that are compatible with other postmodern kitchen appliances. The list is
endless, because so many technical, design and practical requirements and
cultural connotations and values have to be adapted to and met.
Research into the creative economy increasingly focuses on the plurality
of society and culture. Some research and development activity in business,
for example, concentrates on winnowing out appropriate meanings from
the flood of meanings, and on distinctions based on meanings and the cre-
ation of individual brand concepts.
Given these new conditions, we need much more research in art educa-
tion. It is a fact that the creative economy has often tried to pluck out cre-
ativity, as it were, from art and design fields and bring it closer to business,
but this has been energetically resisted. As theory of cultural criticism sug-
gests (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2005), the more culture becomes a market
commodity, the more it threatens the autonomy and inherent value of cre-
ative work with extinction.
However, much more is going on than the separation of creativity from
traditional fields of art and design. Creative work based on the production
of intangible values and the principle of autonomy is an in-built necessity in
a creative economy for conserving culture and the economy, so their
mutual positions are reversed. If we really believe that free competition
automatically guarantees the quality of new art forms, there is no need to
introduce new methods of teaching and learning even at this time of radical
social change.
Researchers who study work development, such as Bart Victor and
Andrew Boynton (1998) speak of ‘craft work’ rather than ‘production of
meaning’. They argue that craftwork is embedded in more recent work pat-
terns in many ways. In industrial societies with mechanical and automated
forms of work it is still needed, for example, whenever products are modi-
fied to meet the needs of new customer groups. In Finland we often use the
concept ‘craft design’.
Writing about ‘generations of work’, Victor & Boynton (1998) note that,
as production methods change, new gaps are continuously created in con-
sumer needs and desires; they point out that it is the characteristics of arti-
sanal work that serve to bridge these gaps by helping to create new styles,
innovations and unique features of products.
Developing co-configuration skills

Leaders in the creative sector are often represented as having a visionary,
charismatic leadership style (Aaltonen & Heikkilä, 2003). However, the net-
work society requires other types of organizational skills. For example, skills
in building are keys to managing experts from different fields who must be
persuaded to work together towards common goals. We need new combi-
nations of artistic/artisanal work and business skills. Management probably
still requires charisma and a shared vision, but the ability to subtly under-
stand and support people from widely divergent operating cultures is prob-
ably more important.
According to Yrjö Engeström (2005), a professor of cultural-historical
activity theory and developmental work at the University of Helsinki, co-
configuration closely resembles co-production and co-creation activities, all

of which are linked to the production process. The concept of co-configuration

refers to continuous activity or ‘chipping away around shared targets’; conse-
quently, it is linked to products or services with long life cycles. According to
Engeström, co-configured products or services never seem complete in a
traditional sense, because they must be adaptable and capable of modifi-
cation to suit users. They contain ‘customer intelligence’ created by means
of information technology. Work development requires training in a new
type of articulated knowledge, for achieving continuous re-configuration of
dialogues between users, producers and products. The production process is
turned upside down when the ultimate goal is to respond to customer
needs and situations and teamwork focuses primarily on inter-professional
discussion of such needs.
A creative economy based on intangible products and services requires co-
configuration skills because product development cannot move forward
unless existing products are enriched by continuously linking them to new ser-
vices and experiences (Wilenius, 2004). Yrjö Engeström has suggested that co-
configuration work requires multiple perspectives. The concept of perspective
dependency is central to Adrian Cussin’s theory of cognitive pathways (1992)
that proposes that actors gain independence from their own perspectives by
establishing a network of paths through a given terrain. When operational
changes begin to occur within this terrain, an established network obstructs
navigation. To regain independence of perspective, the network must be desta-
bilized, which means that the system is in continuous movement.
Complicated thinking of this kind is needed to understand how co-
configuration works and learning how it operates takes time. Co-configuration
skills cannot be acquired rapidly, and must be assimilated over successive
generations. To be able to articulate meaning-making in the work process in
such a way that everyone can configure meanings is a demanding skill. It
requires not only that all parties share a broad-based overall understanding
of a particular sort of work or production, but also a climate of trust.
The professionals I interviewed had extensive experience of meaning
production of various kinds. Mikko Bruun agreed that neither creative work
in the content business nor the methods of supporting it will ever be per-
fected. He uses many counselling methods, such as gestalt therapy, team-
work methods, psychodrama, sociodrama and psychotherapy in his work
and believes that no single method can respond to all that is expected.
Supervision as a journey
When we think about new methods of art education, it is important to
remember the mentoring embedded in supervision of postgraduate
research. In this case the developmental process of an actor from youth to
adulthood becomes even clearer. Mentoring is intertwined with stories of
shared journeys towards the unknown. Dante’s Divine Comedy is a tale
about mentoring, in which Virgil (a classic supervisor character) leads his
protégé from Hell to Heaven.
Helena Aittola (1995) reviewed literature on supervision and human
development. Both the growing comprehension of possible destinations
and the process itself enable supervisees to broaden their perspectives, set
far-reaching goals and objectives and extend their ideas of what is humanly
possible.
236 Tiina Rautkorpi

In academic supervision, instead of attempting to change, help or

understand supervisees, supervisors support independent problem-solving
and decision-making (Aittola, 1995). The postgraduate students in Aittola’s
study (1995) found supervision very beneficial and wanted it to be both pro-
fessional and personalized. Not surprisingly therefore, Ria Karhila told me
that her head swims when she thinks about teaching novice colleagues.
Her instruction takes the form of sharing experiences, telling stories about
her own work, mistakes, uncertainties and successes. She is not sure
whether she is a teacher. Instead she wants to share in the lives of others,
understand them and speak her mind.
Nobel laureates, and famous researchers who study at Harvard or
Cambridge University (Aittola, 1995) typically enter an apprentice system at
the start of their research careers. In a mentoring relationship of this kind,
the acquisition of information is less important than observing how a ‘master’
works, thinks and does research at close range. The greatest advantage
of this supervision system is that the supervisee acquires a broad research
orientation, including the ability to evaluate the quality of research. The
mentor’s tasks also include strengthening the values, norms and self-image
of supervisees.
Where academic mentoring is understood as leading supervisees
through a rite of passage, even more colourful metaphors are used. Periods
during the journey are characterized by intellectual crises, unexpected com-
petition and encounters with enemies, emotional conflict, failure and the
possibility of self-deception. According to this literature, postgraduate
research students are serious and gloomy, even though cognitive develop-
ment and creative research requires a rich imagination and playfulness. At
best, mentoring nurtures these capacities in the study process (Juusela,
Lillia & Rinne, 2000; Keski-Luopa, 2001).
The notion of a shared journey into the unknown, that involves leading
others and being led, is a frequent theme in fiction. In the journey
metaphor, the word ‘dia-logos’ (that which is in-between) is emphasized
(Sava, 1998; Räsänen, 2003; Greimas, 1987; Propp, 1928/1977). Thus, men-
toring is an intermediate stage in growth that is inevitably linked to partner-
ship and choice. Mentoring is also associated with crossing social
boundaries in the sense of breaking down borders between disciplines in
research and/or art (Wilenius, 2004).
Today, management is increasingly understood to consist of promoting
creativity and co-configuration. Stories seem to be the most effective
means of transferring modes of work and organizational culture between
persons. According to Aaltonen & Heikkilä (2003), they are used in man-
agement to clarify links between actions and as means of attaining goals.
Tacit knowledge and dialogue

During the mentoring process two people from different communities,
work cultures and professions enter a dramatic stage to participate in a
shared performance during which they learn about each other’s work
modes. This process closely resembles the work patterns based on co-
configuration that Engeström described.
Mentoring, work counselling, academic supervision and teaching all
deal with and process tacit knowledge that cannot (yet) be articulated or

ETA_3.3_06_Art_Rautkorpi 12/13/07 9:40 AM Page 238
transmitted to others. This knowledge is personal, contextual and difficult

to externalize as abstract concepts or numerical data. Other forms of
knowledge are easier to verbalize or express through metaphor and anal-
ogy. However, tacit knowledge exists at a deeper level and cannot be directly
transferred or copied from one particular process and/or organization to
the next (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).
The tacit knowledge that is typical of artisanal work is closely bound up
with experience, techniques and tools. It forms the basis of all handcraft
and related value production. In artisanal work makers continuously accu-
mulate tacit knowledge when they strive to create new, unique solutions vis-
à-vis customers, products, processes, tools and materials. When Pirkko
Anttila (2004) contrasted practical and personal knowledge she noted that
the former was associated with a skilled maker’s personal style. So
attempts to transfer this to a new situation do not necessarily lead to posi-
tive results. My interview with Ria Karhila confirmed this. As a professional
who enjoys working with students, she told me that she understands her-
self as a person who unties knots, an unruffled solver of difficult situations.
Where a student lacks courage, she considers avoidance of risk is unpro-
ductive and told me it simply leads to mediocre work.
The notion that dialogue enables transmission of tacit knowledge is
central to mentoring. When Shusterman writes about pragmatist aesthet-
ics, he argues that dialogue provides a stage for action and makes
moments of self-expression possible. Dialogue offers a safe, equal relation-
ship within which to formulate meanings. The language of encounter is
shared and understandable (at least at some level), and this facilitates
exchanges of tacit knowledge between two people.
I want to suggest a connection between mentoring and a theory of dia-
logue and polyphony (multi-voicedness) formulated in the nineteenth
century. The Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1984; see also Buber,
1993) constructed a theory of dialogue around the notion of story structures
and the dramatic stage. He understood Socratic dialogue and the
Menippean satires as precursors to the modern dialogic novel. According
to him, Socratic dialogue embodies means of narration such as syncrisis,
or the comparison of different viewpoints, and anacrisis, or provocation to
elicit speech.
In Socratic dialogue protagonists had different perspectives on the
world. The nature of truth and human thinking was presented as dialogic
and ideas were tested dialogically. According to Bakhtin, Socrates used
questions to reveal tacit knowledge or ideas not yet properly articulated. He
constructed action stages on which persons with two world-views could
speak of themselves in their own language as equals and simultaneously
test each other. According to Bakhtin, Dostoyevsky’s novels are good exam-
ples of multi-voicedness. Their heroes conduct dialogues with themselves
and each other that continuously modify their identities. Dialogue pervades
every word in his novels giving them two voices (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 68).
Conclusion
Thus, it is possible to argue that the actors in Bakhtin’s multi-voiced world
are continuously on stage, living in dramatic time and in a state of their
own becoming. It is the act of opening one’s mouth and replying to
238 Tiina Rautkorpi

another’s speech that opens up directions for individual actors. The activi-
ties of actors participating in a dialogue on a stage unfold one sentence at
a time, and each response has the potential to turn it in a new direction.
As mentioned previously, creative economies are flooded with mean-
ings. However, the main interest of pragmatist aesthetics and drama theory
is in how humans act in and manage society. The creative economy with work
patterns based on co-configuration requires actors who are subjects of their
own lives.
Those within reach of the opportunities offered by the creative economy
and co-configuration feel hopeful, because they have many options (Juuti,
2005). The aesthetics of dialogue is not totally fragmented, and the key
point is to find the right direction in life. My interviewee Eero Holstila did
not view the mentoring process as a locus for creating innovation per se.
Whereas the latter is characterized by unpredictability, mentoring is primar-
ily a support structure. He thinks that individuals need to experience basic
security so as to encourage them to take bigger professional risks.
At any one time, dialogue may include a performance by one person in
response to the voice of another. Each new reply contains hope. Hope
resides in the fact that life has direction and evolves. Art education institu-
tions need to think carefully about how to respond to the requirements of
new creative economies. Together with my interviewees, I propose mentor-
ing as an appropriate means of breaking down boundaries between disci-
plines and connecting cultural meaning-making and economics.
Notes
1. In Finland, work counselling first started among healthcare and social-work
professionals. The British and American tradition in this field often focuses
on understanding the meaning of inter-organizational relationships and
communication; see the research interests of the Tavistock Institute of
Human Relations in London. The term ‘supervision’ appears infrequently
and originates in both manager training and therapy. The tutorial meaning
of the term ‘supervision’ was first used at Cambridge University.
2. Details of interviewees:
Mikko Bruun is Head of Development at the Corporate Strategy Office
of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (face-to face interview, 20 April
2005). Eero Holstila currently works as Director of Economic
Development at the City of Helsinki Economic and Planning Centre. At
the time of the interview he was Managing Director of Culminatum
(face-to-face interview, 7 April 2005). Ria Karhila is a freelance TV jour-
nalist (e-mail interview, 20 April 2005).
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Engeström, Y. (2005). Developmental work research: Expanding activity theory in practice.
Berlin: Lehmanns Media.
Greimas, A. (1987). On meaning: Selected writings in semiotic theory. (Trans. P.J.
Perron & F.H. Collins). London: Frances Pinter.
Huhtala, H. (2004). The emancipated worker? A Foucauldian study of power, subjectivity
and organising in the information age. Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium,
64. Saarijärvi: Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.
Juusela T., Lillia, T. & Rinne, J. (2000). Mentoroinnin monet kasvot [The many faces of
mentoring]. Jyväskylä: Yrityskirjat Oy.
Juuti, P. (2005). Toivon johtaminen [Management by hope]. Aavaranta-sarja. Keuruu:
Otava.
Keski-Luopa, L. (2001). Työnohjaus vai superviisaus: Työnohjausprosessin filosofisten ja
kehityspsykologisten perusteiden tarkastelua [Work supervision or super-wisdom:
On the philosophy and developmental psychology of the work supervision
process]. Oulu: Metanoia-instituutti.
Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company: How Japanese
companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York & Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Propp, V. (1928/1977). Morphology of the folktale. Austin & London: University of
Texas Press.
Räsänen, M. (2003). Kirjeitä sinisestä hatusta [Letters from the blue hat]. In J. Varto,
M. Saarnivaara & H. Tervahattu H. (Eds). Kohtaamisia taiteen ja tutkimisen
maastoissa [Encounters in the terrains of art and research] (pp. 174–183).
Artefakta, 13. Hamina: Akatiimi Oy.
Reitala H. & Heinonen T. (2001). Dramatisoitua todellisuutta [Dramatized reality].
In H. Reitala & T. Heinonen, Dramaturgioita: Näkökulmia draamateorian, dra-
maturgian ja draama-analyysin ongelmiin [Dramaturgies: Viewpoints on the prob-
lems of theory of drama, dramaturgy and analysis of drama] (pp. 9–74).
Saarijärvi: Palmenia-kustannus.
Sava, I. (1998). Taiteen ja tieteen kietoutuminen tutkimuksessa [The intertwining
of art and science in research]. In M. Bardy (Ed.). Taide tiedon lähteenä [Art as
a source of knowledge] (pp. 103–121). Stakes julkaisut. Jyväskylä: Atena
Kustannus Oy.
Shusterman, R. (1992). Pragmatist aesthetics: Living beauty, rethinking art. Oxford:
Blackwell.
——— (2000). Performing live: Aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. Ithaca, NY &
London: Cornell University Press.
240 Tiina Rautkorpi

Victor, B. & Boynton, A. (1998). Invented here: Maximizing your organization’s growth
and profitability: A practical guide to transforming work. Boston, MA: Harvard
Business School Press.
Wilenius, M. (2004). Luovaan talouteen: Kulttuuriosaaminen tulevaisuuden
voimavarana [Towards a creative economy: Cultural expertise as a resource for
the future]. Helsinki: Edita.
Suggested citation
Rautkorpi, T. (2007), ‘Mentoring in the creative economy’, International Journal of
Education through Art 3: 3, pp. 231–241. doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.231/1
Contributor details
Tiina Rautkorpi is Senior Lecturer of Media at Helsinki Polytechnic, Finland. She
worked as a radio and TV journalist and documentary director for ten years. Since
then she has been employed as Lecturer in Education Planning and Management in
the Department of Visual and Media Arts. She is interested in combining industry
and business-oriented research and development with art pedagogy in adult educa-
tion; and her main research topic is the use of art pedagogy, developmental work
and research methods in journalistic production. Contact: Research and Development,
Helsinki Polytechnic, PO Box 4032, FIN-00099 City of Helsinki, Finland.
E-mail: tiina.rautkorpi@stadia.fi

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ETA_3.3_07_rev_Paulo.qxd 12/11/07 7:59 PM Page 243
BOOK REVIEWS
Book Reviews. English language. doi: 10.1386/eta.3.3.243/5. © Intellect Ltd 2007.
Artes Visuais: Da Exposição à Sala de Aula (Visual Arts: From

Exhibition To Classroom), Ana Mae Barbosa, Rejane Galvão
Coutinho and Heloísa Margarida Sales, (2005)
São Paulo: Edusp-principlesEditora da Universidade de São
Paulo, 216 pp. ISBN 85-314-0935-7 (pbk), Real(Bzl)62.00
Reviewed by Anabela Moura, Escola Superior de Educação de Viana do
Castelo, Portugal
This book provides an account of research on an important topic. The

authors investigated the key areas of professional development of art teach-
ers and the role of educational resources in this development. The original
project was funded by the Cultural Centre of the Brazilian Bank – CCBB and
developed by Arteducação Produções and La Fabbrica do Brazil. The aim
was to reflect on and evaluate what impact the educational materials called
Diálogos e Reflexões (Dialogues and Reflections – D & R) had on teachers’ atti-
tudes and behaviours. Ana Mae Barbosa, one of the three researchers and
authors, briefly summarizes this research project. It was set in 70 primary
(elementary) schools in the city of São Paulo, Brazil and was mostly about
art teachers; the sample comprised four groups of specialist teachers with
higher education training (80 per cent of whom specialized in the arts). The
researchers critically evaluated the various approaches of participant teach-
ers to the materials. Of the 64 teachers in the sample, 32 of them (5 men
and 27 women) sent their students’ works to be evaluated at the end of the
academic year. Only four of them were artist practitioners, but all those who
completed the questionnaire reported that they went to exhibitions and
used the Internet regularly as a research tool. The teachers’ average age
was 43 and they had an average of sixteen years teaching experience.
There is a lack of clarity about the methods used by the four groups. The
roles of the different members of the research team were not well specified,
although it is clear that all the groups had a field agent who visited the
teachers, as well as monitors who accompanied those visits and a
researcher who contacted all the teachers by e-mail. Moreover, students’
responses served as the basis of reflection by the La Fabbrica do Brasil’s team
on the involvement and professional development of the participants.
However, the researchers did not address all the four groups in equal
depth. This was perhaps inevitable given the number of case studies, the
lack of reflection and evaluation of many of the participant teachers, and
also their difficulty with the reporting of their own case studies. Barbosa
considered the strategies and resources fundamental to the success of this
project. The CCBB was in charge of distributing the D & R material to the
four groups, all of which, in their conversations with the field agent or in
their answers to the questionnaire, praised it (p. 209) and considered it an
adequate strategy. According to the researchers, there was a feeling that the

materials and the meetings with the groups were interrelated (p. 210) since,
the teachers were given guidelines at those meetings, on how to use the
materials. The conceptual basis and defined methodology allowed
the teachers to use the materials in an individual way, which was verified
through practice (p. 212).
The teachers reported that the D & R material gave them greater free-
dom to speak about art, and themselves. They considered that the materi-
als alone made their teaching richer in quality and that the meetings
enabled them to get the best out of them and that D & R contained both
information and orientation, whose guiding principles should be brought
together in combination with the teachers’ own principles. It was also con-
firmed that, throughout the one-year study, the teachers were able to inte-
grate and/or add new content to their curricula, with a wider variety of
materials and classroom repertoire, through proposing themes that were
more inclusive and applicable to their students’ realities, and through
addressing aesthetic and philosophical questions about contemporary art.
Interdisciplinary approaches between art and history were also thought to
be essential. By using the evaluative criteria employed by Group 1 together
with the sequence of the students’ artworks it was possible to provide com-
parative analysis throughout.
The conclusion was that there was progress in all the classes that sent
in materials. This idea of progress was emphasized in the teachers’ conver-
sations with the field agents and in their answers to the questionnaire, with
the exception of Group 1, which did not mention this aspect explicitly. The
final evaluation was positive with the researchers noting that ‘the quantita-
tive results and qualitative analyses show that the contents of the CCBB
exhibitions in 2004 became a part of the programmes of the teachers who
took part in the research’ (p. 210). This conclusion was drawn from the
teachers’ analyses, taking the following factors into consideration: their aca-
demic training, their repertoire, the characteristics of their teaching practice
and their commitment to teaching. A final recommendation is for agree-
ments to be drawn up between cultural institutions and state education to
enable educational specialists to visit schools and provide guidance for
teachers for evaluating their teaching resources, proposing ideas for
projects and making better use of the resources that local communities
have to offer.
This book is well written and it is clear that the researchers have put a
great deal of effort into it and that this study will make a contribution to
research in this field. It contains an interesting discussion about project-
based art criticism. However, the references it presents are poor in terms of
background reading and the description of the methods used is not clear
enough. The reader is given some explanation of whom the participants in
each case study are and becomes better acquainted with them as the
description progresses. Nevertheless, it would be better if more details were
provided in order to explain the differences and behaviours in each specific
situation. The sequence of ideas throughout the paper and its overall struc-
ture are clear. On the other hand it would have helped those international
readers who know little or nothing about this country or education system
had the researchers contextualized it within the Brazilian art education scene,
including the images of the four exhibitions mentioned in the project, and
244 Book Reviews

ETA_3.3_07_rev_Paulo.qxd 12/13/07 10:13 AM Page 245
information about the educational materials (Diálogos e Reflexões – D & R)

would help readers to understand the teachers’ responses better. Moreover,
the book discusses concepts that readers may not understand. Therefore,
further explanation, clarification and definitions would help, for example,
Abordagem Triangular or Triangular Approach (which has nothing at all to do
with ‘triangulation’ as used in many research designs) and Pedagogia
Questionadora or Questioning Pedagogy, folder interactivo or interactive folder,
re-leitura or re-reading. The final verdict is that this research is not reflective
enough and the discussion remains far too generalized. It is rare to read
about research without finding fault with aspects of method, but in this case
it is apparent that changes to the overall research design were required, as
was a clearer explanation of the authors’ own understanding of aesthetic
practice.
Histories of Art and Design Education: Collected Essays,

Mervyn Romans (ed), (2005)
Bristol, UK and Portland, OR: Intellect Books, for the National
Society for Education in Art and Design. 243 pp.
ISBN 1- 84150-131-X (hbk), £24.95
Reviewed by Harold Pearse University of Alberta, Canada
Although this book is a collection of essays by diverse authors, all but two of
which appeared over a span of sixteen years in the International Journal of Art
and Design Education, when taken together they read as a complex yet rela-
tively seamless history of art and design education in the United Kingdom. It
is no coincidence that most of the essays are from that fertile decade for
art education history research and writing – roughly from 1983 to 1993. What
links the chapters together is the organization – six sections of from two to
four chapters each, dealing with drawing manuals and books; motives and
rationales; institutional approaches; the professionalization of the field;
pivotal historical figures; and British influences abroad. While in themselves
the section headings do not imply a particular chronology, within each section
a historical evolution is revealed. This structure, devised by the editor,
Mervyn Romans, firmly situates the field’s history in a social/political/eco-
nomic and cultural context and is a vivid indicator of how research and
writing on the history of art and design education has matured.
After a helpful contextualizing introduction by the editor, the book
opens with two chapters that focus on drawing instruction publications in
nineteenth-century Britain and America. Rafael Cardoso’s chapter, ‘A
Preliminary Survey of Drawing Manuals in Britain c. 1825–1875’, describes
vividly the impact of the advent of cheap engraving and printing methods in
the mid-1820s that made drawing and design instruction books available to
a broad public and helped to prepare the ground for the establishment of
institutions like the Department of Science and Art and a system of schools
of design a decade or so later. Diana Korzenik’s chapter, ‘“How to Draw”
Books as Sources to Understanding Art Education of the Nineteenth
Century’ shows how in America drawing instruction served practical purposes
Book Reviews 245

while in Britain, as Cardoso explains, the aim was to uplift moral values.
Cardoso’s article is relatively recent (1996) while Korzenik’s (1985) is a classic.
Both help us to gain insights into the relationship between popular self-
help publications and school system-generated curriculum materials.
The second section of the book, Chapters 3 and 4, both by Romans, is
headed ‘Motives and Rationales for Public Art and Design Education’. The
only new chapters, they revisit the taken for granted and generally acknowl-
edged genesis of a system of art and design education in Britain, the
1835–36 Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures. Earlier historians
tended to regard the Committee’s deliberations and recommendations as
motivated primarily by economic considerations. In the spirit of the new
revisionist historians, Romans argues in one chapter that concerns with the
economy were by far overshadowed by the question of ‘taste’. Through a
careful reading of the Committee’s minutes he reveals the complex layers of
meaning underlying taste as a social construct, its link with fashion and
consumerism and as the moral justification for the implementation of pub-
lic art and design education. In the other chapter he re-examines this period
and the Select Committee’s hearings through the lens of the language of
class. Again he introduces a new complexity and subtlety to the discussion
noting that social class was in a state of flux at that time and that our
understanding can best be served by considering the interactions between
the changing working, artisan and middle classes.
While Roman’s contention that art and design education historians can
learn from ‘the wider community of social historians’ is well founded, when
it comes to carefully and critically presenting socially contextualized histori-
cal material, the authors in this volume are no slouches. John Swift’s two
chapters (5 and 6) elaborate in exquisite detail the growth of Birmingham’s
Art School from its first incarnation in 1800 to the 1920s, chronicling the
pressures of local influences and the struggle against central control. In
spite of the dominance of London in governing the national system of art
and design schools, the one in Birmingham developed a relatively autonomous
approach and innovative educational philosophies, including the notion of
executed design wherein students could bring their own ideas to fruition.
Swift describes how this innovation benefited female students, at least to
the extent that gender stereotyping would allow.
The two chapters that make up Section 4, ‘Towards Art Education as a
Profession’, by David Thistlewood and John Steers respectively, trace the
hundred-year history of the National Society for Education in Art and
Design (originally the Society of Art Masters) and the fifty-year history of the
International Society for Education through Art (INSEA). Full of fascinating
characters, both are rich in detail and effectively situate people and events
in social, cultural and political contexts.
Probably the most accessible section is the one on ‘Pivitol Figures in
Art and Design Education History’. Every field of endeavour needs heroes
and four of almost mythic stature are presented here, each with their own
chapter: John Ruskin, Marion Richardson, Herbert Read and Richard
Hamilton. Given their pervasive influence it is not surprising that their
careers link to other chapters. John Ruskin and his book, Elements of
Drawing are featured in the chapter on drawing manuals and Herbert Read
and Education through Art are key players in the chapter on INSEA. Marion
246 Book Reviews

Richardson, a graduate of the teacher-training course at the previously

profiled Birmingham School of Art, is respectfully portrayed as an exem-
plar of the inspired practising teacher whose work and ideas can propel an
entire education movement. Her insistence that the expressive work of
children was to be nurtured and valued profoundly influenced the New Art
Teaching of the 1930s and 1940s and as the author, Bruce Holdsworth,
observes, still reverberates today. Similarly, the legacy of Richard
Hamilton, post-secondary educator and artist and a key player in the Basic
Design movement of the 1950s and 1960s, still persists in the widely held
conviction that there are fundamental visual principles that should be the
foundation of art and design education at any level.
The final section is comprised of two chapters dealing with the influence
of British art and design education overseas, specifically Canada and Japan.
Graeme Chalmers’ essay examines the ways that the South Kensington sys-
tem translated to Ontario and draws insightful parallels between the strate-
gies and circumstances of a little-known bureaucrat, Samuel Passmore May
in Canada and the celebrated Sir Henry Cole in England. Akio Okazaki looks
at the impact of the introduction of nineteenth-century drawing manuals
and the South Kensington system in early twentieth-century Japan and the
backlash in the 1920s of a short-lived ‘free drawing movement’. Curiously,
just as Japanese art had influenced European art via Impressionism and
Post-Impressionism, European modernism and the ideas of Read and
Richardson influenced art and art education in twentieth-century Japan.
An anthology is an appropriate format to portray the history of art and
design education as it is so multifaceted that its scope and range can best
be reflected through multiple voices. Moreover, the task is likely to be
beyond the endurance, if not the knowledge and resources, of a single
author. This book is an important contribution to stimulating a much-
needed dialogue between historians of art and design education as well as
among the wider community of historians. At the same time it is an acces-
sible vehicle for practitioners and students to gain an awareness and under-
standing of the roots and evolution of their field. It serves effectively one of
the most important tasks of history – revealing and scrutinizing the sources
of our current theories and practices.
Book Reviews 247

ETA_3.3_8_index 12/11/07 7:58 PM Page 248
ETA Volume 3 INDEX
Barreto, C., and Coutinho, R., Art education and professional training: The São
Paulo Professional School for Women, pp. 69–76.
Cepeda, C., Art in science education: Creative visions of DNA by engineering stu-
dents, pp. 37–42.
Chanda, J., Learning from images: a source of interdisciplinary knowledge, pp. 7–18.
Chandler, R., Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity, representa-
tion and cultural histories at the Boston MFA, pp. 173–184.
Chung, S.K., An exploration of media violence in a junior-high school art classroom,
pp. 57–68.
Flood, A., and Bamford, A., Manipulation, simulation, stimulation: the role of art
education in the digital age, pp. 91–103.
Fukumoto, K., Art Lunch Project: an international collaboration among art teachers,
pp. 195–209.
Gombe, C., Indigenous plaited patterns on Ugandan mats, pp. 125–134.
Gumbe, J., Researching ritual as content for Angolan art education, pp. 19–35.
Labitsi, V., ‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry into the representation of nar-
rative structures in Greek children’s drawings, pp. 185–193.
Linnap, P., Images and fear : Repressed pictures as a tool for analysing society,
pp. 211–229.
Navarro, S., Alzheimer’s: Researching the disease through sculpture, pp. 135–141.
Piazza, G., On the wave of creativity: Children, expressive languages and technology,
pp. 105–123.
Rautkorpi, T., Mentoring in the creative economy, pp. 231–241.
Steers, J., The ever-expanding art curriculum – is it teachable or sustainable?
pp. 143–155.
Ulkuniemi, S., Exposed lives: dialogues between viewers and installations about
family photography, pp. 43–55.
248 JVAP 6 (3) Index © Intellect Ltd 2007. ISSN 1743-5234.

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International Journal of Education through Art | Volume Three Number Three
Volume Three Number Three

ISSN 1743-5234
Education through Art
Volume 3 Number 3 – 2007 3.3
Editorial
169–171
Articles
173–184 Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity,
Education
representation and cultural histories at the Boston MFA
Robin M. Chandler
185–193 ‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry into the representation of
narrative structures in Greek children’s drawings
195–209
211–229
Vasiliki Labitsi
Art Lunch Project: an international collaboration among art teachers
Kinichi Fukumoto
Images and fear: Repressed pictures as a tool for analysing society
through Art
Peeter Linnap
231–241 Mentoring in the creative economy
Tiina Rautkorpi
243–247 Book Reviews

248 Index
intellect Journals | Art & Design

ISSN 1743-5234
33
intellect
9 771743 523002 www.intellectbooks.com
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International Journal of Education through Art | Volume Three Number Three

Volume Three Number Three

243–247 Book Reviews

intellect Journals | Art & Design

9 771743 523002 www.intellectbooks.com

ETA_3.3_Cover.indd 1 11/28/07 7:44:04 PM

International Journal of Education through Art

address if necessary. This should not sequence and be shown as Figure 1,

International Journal of Education through Art, Volume 3 Number 3.

ETA 3 (3) pp. 169–171. © Intellect Ltd 2007. 169

ESSENTIAL The Irish Arts Review is Ireland’s leading visual arts

READING a year, this beautifully illustrated 150-page journal

FOR expertly written articles and reviews of Irish painting,

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International Journal of Education through Art, Volume 3 Number 3.

Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on

ETA 3 (3) pp. 173–184 © Intellect Ltd 2007. 173

174 Robin M. Chandler

Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity… 175

5. Visit UNESCO on institutions (museums et al.) are emerging as sites of reconstruction,

Authenticity and heritage in the ‘floating classroom’

How can educators reconstruct the differentiated cultural memories of

176 Robin M. Chandler

Connecting the dots in theory and practice

Colorquest©: instructor preparation

Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity… 177

178 Robin M. Chandler

Copley’s painting depicts an unknown person of African descent at the pin-

Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity… 179

This outdoor bronze sculpture of a Native American Indian invoking the

180 Robin M. Chandler

Native population of 20 million in Mesoamerica at the time of the coming

At a time when the Middle East is an ever-present player in geopolitical

The seeds of Colorquest©: closing comments about

Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity… 181

I remember my undergraduate and graduate education at university as

182 Robin M. Chandler

Colorquest©: A museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity… 183

Gonzalez, R. (Ed.) (1992). Without Discovery: A Native Response to Columbus. Seattle:

184 Robin M. Chandler

International Journal of Education through Art, Volume 3 Number 3.

‘Climbing to reach the sunset’: an inquiry

Children and visual narrative

ETA 3 (3) pp. 185–193 © Intellect Ltd 2007. 185

Figure 1: Girl and the sunset.

Type of narrative structure Frequency

Figure 2: Most frequent narrative structure types.

186 Vasiliki Labitsi

Figure 3: Going shopping at the supermarket.

‘Unidirectional transactional actions’ was the most common narrative

Figure 4: Mother and child panda eating.

Figure 5: Picasso painting.

Figure 6: Robin Hood fights his enemies.

188 Vasiliki Labitsi

Figure 7: Peter Pan and Wendy flying over a rainbow.

Figure 8: A tree growing.

or speech bubbles projected the thoughts, feelings and intentions of repre-

Figure 9: Tintown characters trying to cross a river.

Figure 10: Bank robbery.