Presentation Schedule
Relational Art Education in an Ecologically Entangled World (110241)
Session Chair: John Nguyet Erni
Sunday, 12 July 2026 10:20
Session: Session 1
Room: UCL Torrington, G12 (Ground Floor)
Presentation Type:Oral Presentation
Formalist-inspired approaches to art, which are based on a division between object and subject and premised on the idea that an artwork’s form encapsulates its essence, continue to shape contemporary art education in secondary schools in the Netherlands and beyond. However, this approach is not able to address the plurality of meanings an artwork can generate in an intercultural and ecologically entangled world. Drawing on the work of Estelle Zhong Mengual, Bruno Latour and Achille Mbembe, among others, this paper develops an alternative approach and explores heuristics for a relational mode of inquiry in art education. Relational approaches dissolve the hierarchies established by the object/subject scheme. Rather than appropriating or stabilizing their objects, they enable non-humans to articulate counter-voices and remain attentive to transformation and change. The way Latour and Zhong Mengual foreground (embodied) situated perspectives of both humans and non-humans opens possibilities for understanding artworks as active participants in meaning-making practices. In this paper I argue for a relational approach to art education by paying attention to the ways works of art ‘live’ in their own particular way. This approach generates possibilities for a more inclusive art education that supports the understanding of art within ecological entanglement.
Authors:
Pien School, Leiden University, Netherlands
About the Presenter(s)
Pien School is pursuing a PhD in relational art education at Leiden University.
See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule
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