NL

Reimaging art education

Artists and designers work from an artistic intelligence. They create intermediate spaces within which a form of sameness emerges from which the input of multiple perspectives becomes possible. From where new alternatives can emerge. And it is abundantly clear in this day and age that we desperately need alternatives in order to address current social challenges.

A transformation is also needed in arts education, to make it more pluralistic. Within our school we have all these people with this capacity to let alternatives emerge. That’s why we started a process within HKU Design in 2016 to reshape our education and ways of working. We aspire to art education in which there is room to not know, to let things emerge, to work from intuition, association and from multiple perspectives: intercultural and intergenerational. This influences our didactics, assessments, educational design, collaborations, et cetera.

Working from multiple perspectives involves remaining critical of your working methods and seeking new perspectives. In the school we organize this with students, teachers, tutors, course leaders, guest lecturers and so forth. We also invite designers from the professional field to engage with us about our education, for instance during Meetups and exhibitions of student projects. Currently we’re also looking for ways to make the voice of non-humans beings more present in our educational design process.

In 2024 we want to challenge ourselves to make these ways of working more explicit and visible. On this page, students, teachers, course leadres, educationalists, directors will post and collect work approaches, observations, outcomes, et cetera. To share and learn with everyone involved and interested.

ELIA conference

During the ELIA Biennial session you can join us to explore from a systemic point of view which elements are crucial in an educational and pedagogical design which is grounded in working with multiple perspectives. In an iterative session we will create setups using visual imagery and objects, to reflect on the systemic relations in the arrangement of educational and pedagogical elements. We will be imagining from all available perspectives, from student to dean. While altering and experimenting with these arrangements we’ll explore helpful system adaptations to enhance artistic intelligence within art education. What interventions are necessary in your educational design to promote artistic intelligence in future design and art education based on plural voices? Because if we strengthen artistic intelligence in our systems, we thereby strengthen the position of artists and designers in social transformations.

Project leaders

Marinda Verhoeven (1976) is director of the school HKU Design at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in the Netherlands. HKU Design currently includes the bachelor Fashion Design, the bachelor Product Design, the bachelor Spatial Design, the master Interior Architecture, the associate degree Connected Design and the minors: What’s Fashion Design, Not Only Product Design and Spatialisation. Marinda has over 20 years of experience working in the field of the arts and creative industries, as a Designer, Board Member, Educator and Managing Director. She holds a master’s degree in Comparative Art and Media Studies. Over the past 8 years she’s been involved in research with an interest in integrating working methods from design processes within collaboration processes in organizations and leadership. Alongside her work for HKU she’s currently member of several supervisory boards, including the national The Creative Industries Fund NL.

Paulien Oosterhuis (1960) is educationalist at HKU Design with 30 years plus experience in art education and art pedagogy. Within HKU she’s involved in curriculum development, educational profiles, quality care an team development, mainly from a pedagogical point of view. Currently she’s also member of the national Dutch workgroup that’s reviewing the professional and educational profile for Dutch higher education in arts and design.

Contact details

Marinda Verhoeven
marinda.verhoeven-spek@hku.nl