15 November 2011 Lecture at Shorelines symposium
Ayr, Scotland
On the
15th of November, Jan van Boeckel presented a lecture as part of the
Shorelines Symposium on Place, Creativity and Wellbeing
Organisers were University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, and South Ayrshire
Council Museums and Galleries, with the University of the West of
Scotland. This one day international academic symposium was held at the
Maclaurin Galleries, Ayr, Scotland, Keynote Speakers were Dr. Ian
McGilchrist BM, MA, FRCPsych author of The Master and his Emissary: The
Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, and Chris Drury,
Land Artist.
The Symposium explored interconnections between creative spaces or
locations and physical and emotional wellbeing. It brought together a
multidisciplinary audience of researchers, academics and arts
practitioners to present cutting edge research in their fields, fostering
discussion and further understanding about the significance of place in
the creative process and its potential to enhance the quality of human
experience.
On
Friday 18 November, Jan van Boeckel facilitated a morning-long
workshop with some of the staff and students of ASN, the Art, Space
+ Nature Program in Edinburgh, at the Edinburgh College of Art in
Scotland.
11
November 2011
Publication and defence of
dissertation
Aalto University, Helsinki
On
11 November 2011, Leena defended her PhD thesis entitled
Luonnossa, vuoropuhelua Nils-Aslak Valkeapään tuotannon kanssa
("In nature - conducting a dialogue with the works of Nils-Aslak
Valkeapää").
All
this is my home / these fjords rivers lakes / this cold this
sunshine these storms” (Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, 1979)
Wind, reindeer, time, fire, people – the people living with reindeer
in nature still have a straightforward relationship with the basic
elements of life. Leena Valkeapää’s dissertation is a study aiming
to develop artistic thinking in which the focus is on the way of
life and the way of being in north-western Lapland which are both
intertwined with nature.
In her dissertation, Leena Valkeapää goes beyond the traditional
anthropological approach by engaging in a dialogue with Nils-Aslak
Valkeapää's poetic, academic and literary portrayals of the Sami way
of life and her own feelings. Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Àillohaš
(1943-2001) was a Sami artist working in a broad range of fields and
he is probably best known in Finland as the creator and performer of
the new yoik. He also published eight collections of poems two of
which have been translated into Finnish.
In the dissertation, the dialogue intensifies as text messages of
Oula A. Valkeapää, the husband of Leena Valkeapää, and excerpts from
the work Kertomus saamelaisista (A portrayal of the Sami people) by
Johan Turi, a member of the Swedish Sami community, are shown side
by side with Nils-Aslak Valkeapää’s poetry. Turi’s work was first
published in 1910 as Muitalus sámiid birra and it was translated
into Finnish in 1979. The dialogue involving three different
narrators reveals common experiences, which each of the three
describe using their own background as a basis. All three are
members of the Sami people. In her study, Leena Valkeapää calls the
way of life and the cultural traditions common to them reindeer
life. The core of Leena Valkeapää’s dissertation is the dialogue
relationship in which Oula A. Valkeapää’s thinking and her own
thinking create a state of discussion.
Leena Valkeapää is an environmental artist. Her work includes a
large number of exhibitions (both group exhibitions and exhibitions
displaying her own works only), environmental projects and
environmental works of art. The best known of her works of art is
“Jäähuntu” (Icy Veil; 1999) at the rock cutting of Helsinginkatu in
Turku. In addition to her artistic activities, Leena Valkeapää has
also worked as a teacher of environmental art in a number of
educational institutions. Between 2005 and 2010, she worked as a
teacher of environmental education at the Department of Art of the
University of Art and Design Helsinki.
Leena Valkeapää’s dissertation (in Finnish) is published by Maahenki
in the publication series of the Aalto University School of Art and
Design. Orders: TaiK Publications, email: books@taik.fi, online
bookshop:
www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa
14-15 April 2011
Lecture on Art
and Transition (Konst och omställning)
Gävle, Sweden
At the
invitation of Högskolan i Gävle and Konstcentrum Gävle, Jan van Boeckel
presented a lecture at Gävle art centre and workshops with students in
horticultural design of Wij Trädgårdar.
Below are
some images of the workshop.
26 February 2011
Conference Inspiring
Change towards a Green Europe
Freiburg, Germany
Together with
Ceciel Verheij, Jan van Boeckel presented three workshops at this conference:
The making of a group painting to improvised music, clay metamorphosis of
organic forms, and making of a mini version of the self in clay.
"I was
one of the participants of the Environmental Art Workshop in Freiburg. I just
would like to tell you that I enjoyed it so much. From the first minute I knew
that this will not be a workshop but something that is considered a
beautiful act (if I may borrow Immanuel
Kant's term). We acted with our inclinations and got in touch with our inner
self. It was so evident in the way we expressed ourselves through art. You have
planted in us the seed to appreciate the world we live in. It is only a matter
of nurturing and propagating this seed to benefit a greater number of people. I
dare say, that through this workshop, we have achieved the essence of 'inspiring
change towards a green economy'."
Rowena Zapanta, a SPRING Participant/DAAD Scholar from the Philippines
Organizers Brindusa Ana-M Birhala and Sophia
Carodenuto, in front of the painting, which is on permanent display now in the
university. Under it is a a plaquette with the text: "The painting is the
product of an environmental art workshop with the Freiburg Forum on
Environmental Governance. ...The participants went thorugh a process of making a
group painting accompanied by improvised life music. Each participant from a
group of 26 contributed to the painting using organic acrylic colors, inspired
by the natural surroundings of the Herderbau."
24-25 February 2011
Kunst og Økologi / Art and
Ecology seminar
Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo, Fakultetet for
visuell kunst
At this seminar on Art and Ecology
that took place at at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, Jan van Boeckel gave a
presentation and facilitated a workshop with clay. His theme was the relationship between the self, the used materials and
the environment in arts-based environmental education. During the workshop, the
participants modeled one of their hands in clay with the eyes closed. At the
final moment the clay fingers were taken up so that the fingertips would meet
each other in a circle, still with closed eyes.
From the flyer: "Økologien og dens problemstillinger kan knyttes til personlige, sosiale såvel
som materielle praksiser - seminaret vil ta opp ulike forhold mellom kunst og
økologi som berører disse tre feltene. Forskjellige forelesere/kunstnere vil
bruke sin produksjon og erfaring som
utgangspunkt for videre diskusjoner."
Researching Art and
Science
Doli, Peleponnes, Greece
The aim of this
week was to explore the field of art and science – a field all of the
participants are engaged in, in one way or the other. There are three layers
which, for the sake of overview, might be defined separately; art, research and
teaching and learning. In a phenomenological sense we could start the
reflections on these by doing them, that is by actually practicing art, science
and teaching/learning. Further, for this workshop week we found it useful to
establish "art as practice" as the point of departure for moving into research,
moving into teaching and learning.
One approach we practiced was working with "art as practice" as "a layer of
return," grounding the discussions and reflections in common artistic work and
exercises throughout the week. Topics in this field were:
Art and
creativity: Are these “one and the same thing”? Or is artistic creativity
something unique?
Is the skill
of creativity transferable? Can the practice of creativity in art
classes/exercises lead to creativity in for example science education?
Artistic
research or research on art: What are the differences, the commonalities?
Has art a
value in itself or a means for research or teachers? Of course art has a value
of its own! But what happens when it is used in research, in teaching and
learning? Or: How to avoid that art is reduced to mere means?
Deconstruction
of the art/science concepts: Is there a need to establish new concepts by
deconstructing the old ones? How to research the field where there is no
separation between art and science?
Creativity of
the mind and its relation to art: Can art promote thinking, and/or is art a
form of thinking?
The aim of the
week was to employ our own experiences in this field. The focus was on how and
what we have experienced in this field rather than our (rational) thoughts about
the correct blend of art and science – and the correct definitions.
Currently a
comprehensive report is being prepared of the whole seminar.
\
10 October 2010
Wildpainting the autumn
colors in Nuuksio national park on 10 October
Nuuksio, Espoo, Finland
On Sunday, October 10, 2010, we travelled with eight people to Nuuksio National
Park, we we spent the afternoon making paintings with acrylic paint, using the
colours in surprising new ways, in an effort to "see with fresh eyes."
Wilderness and
Blooming Flowers Art and Botany course
Engeløya, 6-12 July, 2010
Together
with biology teacher Linda Jolly and art teacher Solveig Slåttli,
Jan van Boeckel presented the 7 day course "Wilderness and Blooming
Flowers" on the island of Engeløya, close to the Lofoten archipelago in
Northern Norway.
Together
with art education students from Aalto University, doctorate researcher
Mari von Boehm and Professor Pirkko Pohjakallio organized a well-attended
workshop and exhibition on environmental art education on the INSEA
conference in Rovaniemi, Finland.
This time,
the InSEA congress had a quite exotic timing together with the
geographical location: Rovaniemi was lit in the midsummer-night’s sun. The
theme of the congress was Sustainable Art Education, which is recognized
internationally to be somewhat characteristic to the Finnish art education
scene. The first InSEA congress with that theme was also in Finland,
already in 1971. Today this field is evermore current, in the time of
common environmental concern.
The Department of Art Education was invited to make an exhibition about
the roots and history of arts-based environmental education. Professor
Pirkko Pohjakallio collected a group of students: Elissa Eriksson, Elias
Saura, and Juho Hellsten are preparing their final master's thesis and I,
Mari von Boehm, have started my doctoral research on the arts-based
environmental education.
New Image of the Earth
The name of the exhibition is referring to a book Image of the Earth
by Meri-Helga Mantere. It contains articles about Finnish arts-based
environmental education. The book was published already more than a decade
ago, so it was time to see where we had come in this field in 2010, when
the InSEA congress again had sustainable art education as its theme.
Forest
as a metaphor for Finnish arts-based environmental education
We wanted to make the exhibition visually interesting and to use both
archive material (pictures, photographs, curricula, etc.) and make our own
visual interpretation of the different paradigms on the theme. One of the
interesting materials we had was pictures from a competition for school
pupils on the theme of forest. Forest is an important metaphor in Finnish
language and identity. Forest, "erämaa", means a place where you get your
living from. The proverb "you cannot see the forest for the trees" means
that you cannot see the bigger picture if you concentrate only in details.
Something can go "to the forest" or one can "ram into a pine" – to get
lost, to fail. "The forest answers in the same way you call." "Who reaches
the spruce falls into the juniper" – you have your hopes too high. "Listen
to the spruce, whose roots your home stands on."
Four
stereotype art teachers approaching the environmental themes Roots – that is what we are interested in. From the roots of
Finnish arts-based environmental education, we built four overplayed
stereotypes of art teachers. They represent different
paradigms in art education approaching environmental themes. The paradigms
are not so distinct as they appear, as they often overlap, intertwine, and sometimes use each
other's methods. The different paradigms are emphasized during different
decades but also appear during the same years, and even vary in the same
practical projects.
In the exhibition our art teachers were standing tintamaresques, plates
where you can step behind, see the small archive pictures and read some
keywords about that paradigm, and stick your head through the empty hole. Your
companions can see your face on the painted picture on the front side.
This is how the plates were constructed:
Visual CULTURE
The art teacher is standing in the stencil city with her camera. The
visual messages are everywhere; commercial pictures, photographs, signs,
buildings, objects etc. Coloured everyday pictures flow in the sky.
Ethnographic methods are used – the teacher is inspiring pupils to see
what cultural messages you can read from the environment, especially the urban
environment. How a space becomes a place, what it tells about our history,
about everyday aesthetics? The goal for art education is to train a critical eye
for our habitat, and to learn to design and create a better environment.
Values – CARE for nature
The art teacher is standing in the crowd, participating in a demonstration,
as he is socially and politically active. The visual signs call for
change. Posters point out what we want or don't want. Performance can also
make our will visible. Artistic methods are serving idealistic purposes: a
sustainable way of life; peace education; protecting nature, human or
animal rights. The goal for art education is to teach how to influence our
own environment with our powerful visual tools.
Relationship with nature through SENSES
The teacher can be nature herself. Nature stimulates imagination. The art
teacher puts his or her trust in experiential learning and the teaching can go out
of
the classroom. The pupils are encouraged to open their senses by artistic
practices, which can be almost anything from drawing and building out of
natural materials to making conceptual art. Through these practices it is
hoped that the pupils
recognize and study their own relationship with the
surrounding environment, especially nature. The artistic result is less
important when the art teacher wants to work for holistic well-being and
embodiment. The goal for art education is to emotionally involve pupils in
nature and to develop the ability to see the traces we leave in it.
Environment in ART – ART in environment
The art teacher is carrying a golden frame in the forest. In his or her view the
environment is material for art – interpreted by traditional techniques or
conceptual art. He or she wishes the students to see the aesthetic values in
nature and also art as part of our environment. The teacher affirms that art is
something sublime that we can highlight from our environment and culture
with artist's eye. The goal for art education is to train the pupils'
artistic view to see and express aesthetic or conceptual qualities in the
environment.
The "new Image of the earth" workshop
In the workshop we invited participants to see the paradigms we suggested
in the exhibition. First we introduced each art teacher stereotype, giving
a short speech by playing the character with our heads in the
tintamaresque holes. We also pointed out that this was a rough
generalization, and told that we were interested in their own view: was
there some view missing in our suggestion for paradigms, was there
something too unclear or some cultural differences as our participants
presented different nationalities?
We had asked the participants to bring pictures from their own work in the
field of art education. The participants were divided in groups and asked
to discuss about the four art teachers' views by getting familiar with the
keywords and visual material on the backside of the plates. They also
compared, with our help, their own thoughts and pictures to the presented ones. After giving attention to each of the characters we asked them to
choose their place in the space according to which character's view to art
education was closest to their own.
After that, we gave each group one tree stalk and asked them to
present the results of their discussions by using the tree and given art
materials for their statement. We got four different conceptual statements
about our theme, and they were presented shortly in the end of the
workshop. We thought that most important were the discussions while they
were making their works. These statements did not really question our
division, but evoked discussion about personal experiences of the
participants and the feelings they had towards the given material, especially the
leafless tree stalks we had provided. Many of our participants felt
sympathy for the dead tree in the sterile classroom, and some of them
wanted to take the tree stalk back to its own environment.
Thoughts about the project
For my own research, this exhibition project was very inspiring. We found
much interesting material in the archives of the department of art
education that will be of great importance later in my research. In many
instances we found it quite problematic to classify materials
appropriately in our self-constructed division of paradigms. It still
needs further work and clarification, but this is a good start. I hope we can now
present the tintamaresques again at the University of Art and Design
Helsinki.
Mari von Boehm
Lecture
'The point of no return'
Falmouth,
United Kingdom, 8 June 2010
One of the
characteristics of arts-based environmental education is that it
encourages participants to be receptive to nature in new and uncommon
ways. To approach the world afresh through art, to look at a plant, an
animal or even a landscape as if we see it for the first time in our life.
In this, the participant is encouraged to immerse him or herself in
nature, to seek a 'deep identification' (Arne Naess).
In this presentation Jan van Boeckel explored if there could be cases
where such immersion may reach – or even go beyond – a point of return. A
point, where the 'intertwining' with nature causes the subject to sever
the 'life lines' to the world which would enable him or her to maintain
the psychological, cultural and spiritual integrity of the ego. The
dissolving of the ego’s boundaries through artistic practice can be seen
as having certain shamanistic qualities, specifically in case when this
transgression involves efforts to connect with other animal species such
as Joseph Beuys famous studio encounter with a coyote in his performance
I Like America and America Likes Me (1974). Such undertakings may
constitute – at least in the perception of the shaman-artist – a form of
'going native', becoming 'one' with the non-human Others.
As a case history, Van Boeckel discussed the 'trespassing' from the world
of culture to the world of nature by Timothy Treadwell, entering the
ecosphere and live world of the grizzly bears in Alaska, for which he
ultimately paid the price of the death (the tragic story was documented by
Werner Herzog in his film Grizzly Man, 2005). Jan van Boeckel
analyzed the phenomenon along the distinction between Apollonian versus
Dionysian sensibility in cultural activity as articulated by, among
others, Nietzsche and Robert J. Pirsig, and see it as an 'unchecked'
Dionysian immersion in the ecstatic.
Finally he tried to formulate some pedagogical implications for teachers
and facilitators encouraging an attitude of radical amazement and
vulnerability in arts-based environmental education.
Children and Nature: Rediscovering a sense of
wonder
Schumacher College, United Kingdom,
31 May – 4 June 2010
During this one week course with teachers Richard Louv, Kathy Louv and Jan
van Boeckel, the participants looked at why nature is important for
children’s development and creativity, and how the “nature gap” can
be bridged. It included outdoor arts-based workshops and experiential
exercises which can be used in environmental education contexts.
The course is intended for: teachers at all levels, environmental
educators, childcare and family services professionals, and parents.
Other teachers: Richard Louv is a journalist and international recognised expert on
the connection between family, nature and community. His book “Last Child
in the Woods” has stimulated a global debate about the relationship
between children and nature. He is the chairman and co-founder of the
Children & Nature Network. Kathy Louv is a nurse practitioner whose current
interest focuses on the relationship between physical exercise,
health and brain development.
