BIG TALK 2: Rethinking Boundaries in Art & Design Education April 26, 2006

BIG TALK 2:
Rethinking Boundaries in Art & Design Education

Thursday, April 27 to Friday, April 28, 2006

BIG TALK 2: Rethinking Boundaries in Art & Design Education is the second annual symposium of art and design educators, organized by the newly established Initiatives in Art & Design Education Research Group at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), and supported by the Office of the President. This year's symposium focuses on questioning the perceptible and imperceptible boundaries in art and design education, whether individual, institutional, curricular, or cultural. Working to explore and articulate the unique character of art and design education, Big Talk 2 will feature keynote speakers and panel discussions on the issues of interdisciplinarity, globalization, materiality of art and design in the digital age, and the discourses of equity and diversity in teaching and learning. The symposium is open to art and design practitioners, students, scholars, and researchers. Together, participants will have the opportunity to share their observations, experiences, and research in this innovative, broad-based forum.

The event is free and no advance registration is necessary.

Keynote speakers:
Dr. Carol Becker
Carol Becker is Dean of Faculty and Senior Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of numerous articles and several books with many foreign editors. Her book publications include: The Invisible Drama: Women and The Anxiety of Change; The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Social Responsibility; Zones of Contention: Essays on Art, Institutions, Gender, and Anxiety; and most recently, Surpassing the Spectacle: Global Transformations and the Changing Politics of Art.

Ian Carr-Harris
Ian Carr-Harris is an artist based in Toronto whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally since 1971. He is currently represented by the Susan Hobbs Gallery (Toronto). He teaches full time as an instructor in studio and theory at the Ontario College of Art & Design. His active publication schedule includes reviews and articles as well as catalogue essays. He was a founding board member of A Space (1971) and of The Power Plant (1987), and has served on the Harbourfront board and the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario; he is currently again on the board of Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art.

BIG TALK 2: Rethinking Boundaries in Art & Design Education
Symposium Programming

Please note that all panels will be held at 100 McCaul Street, Toronto (the location for the opening keynote address on April 27th is to be confirmed)

DAY ONE: Thursday, April 27, 2006

12 to 1:30 pm: Front Line Perspectives: OCAD Students panel (Room 327)
Moderator: Dan Eylon
This panel draws together OCAD art and design students for the first time in an informal, lunch forum. Students will share anecdotes from their learning experiences as a means to map out and transform the boundaries in art and design education.

2 to 4 pm: Diverse City: Cultural Diversity and Equity in the University (Room 327)
Moderator: Richard Fung
Panellists: Ashok Matur, Johanna Householder (two more panellists to be confirmed)
This panel will address a number of issues in relation to cultural diversity in art & design education in the classroom and beyond. How do we support cultural differences and equity throughout the University and ensure our practices ? from the recruitment and retention of faculty and students, to the curriculum we deliver ? are not exclusionary? How does cultural diversity impact upon the ways in which we construct and assess knowledge? And how can the University nurture cultural competence in students to ensure their ability to engage in art & design with informed historical and cultural frameworks, when they exit as graduates?

6 pm: Welcoming remarks: Sara Diamond, President, OCAD (location TBA)

6 to 7:30 pm: Keynote Address: Dr. Carol Becker (location TBA)

DAY TWO: Friday, April 28, 2006

9 to 9:30 am: Coffee and pastries

9:30 to 11:30 am: Interdisciplinarity in Art & Design Education (Room 327)
Moderator: Karyn Sandlos
Panellists: Judith Doyle, Monique Fouquet, Warren Crichlow, Keith Rushton, Krys Verrall
In art and design education, traditional disciplinary approaches are being combined with new, hybrid forms of curriculum and teaching. This panel examines the possibilities and pitfalls of creating interdisciplinary learning environments. An emphasis is placed on pedagogical approaches that borrow from the hybrid practices of artists and designers. How are our ways of imagining curriculum and studio-based learning influenced by our desire for permeable boundaries? What strategies are we using to mobilize students to imagine and produce contemporary visual and written work that moves freely across the boundaries of art and design? What is driving the current fascination with interdisciplinarity in art and design education, and what new approaches to teaching are opened up by interdisciplinary models drawn from art and design practice?

11:30 to 1 pm: Lunch

1 to 3 pm: Materiality and Immateriality of Art & Design in the Digital Age (Room 230)
Moderator: Vladimir Spicanovic
Panellists: Doreen Balabanoff, Tracey Bowen, Sara Diamond, Robert Linsley
In the age of digital technologies and virtual realities, contemporary artists and designers are raising new questions about the medium, its materiality, tactility and sensuality. Has the notion of medium specificity found its way back into contemporary art and design practice? This panel explores how distinctions between the material and the virtual worlds are addressed in the context of teaching art and design, leading to experiential learning that transcends the dichotomies between human and artificial intelligence, hand and technology, real and imaginary. The panellists are also concerned with formulating methodologies that can access the imperceptible and ephemeral, and that humanize the use of technology in art and design education.

3 to 5 pm: Navigating Instability: Art & Design Education in the Globalized World (Room 230)
Moderator: Blake Fitzpatrick
Panellists: Greg Van Alstyne, Sarindar Dhaliwal, David McIntosh, Lenore Richards
It is often thought that learning to become an artist or a designer means challenging proscribed ways of seeing and acting in the world. But in a world that is increasingly defined in global terms, how might art and design education prepare students to respond to conditions of global sustainability or instability? What are the pedagogical opportunities and constraints for addressing such topical concerns within the context of a studio based education? What are art and design professors asking of students when they encourage them to address issues such as the politics of terrorism, ecological catastrophe, or aspects of cultural history? What methodologies have emerged for new forms of teaching that can link the art & design studio to complex and interrelated contemporary issues?

6 pm: Closing Keynote Address: Ian Carr-Harris (Room 230)

7 to 9 pm: Special Events and Closing Reception (location TBA)

For further information, please contact IADE Research Group coordinators:
Dr. Karyn Sandlos, Interim Director, Writing and Learning Centre, 416-977-6000 Ext. 239, [email protected]
Dr. Vladimir Spicanovic, Assistant Dean, Faculty of Art, 416-977-6000, Ext. 331 or [email protected]

Venue: Ontario College of Art & Design, 100 McCaul St., Toronto, ON

Official Website: http://www.ocad.on.ca/cgi-bin/cal_make.pl?p1=CAL&pp1=010200604280000000000.000.HTML#event_list