Present: Avi Sooful; Ebenezer Acquah; Juste Constant Onana Amougui; Paul-Henri S. Assako Assako; Jayne Awuor; Ruth Belinga; Patrique deGraft-Yankson; Osuanyi Essel; Mary Claire Kidenda; Suki Mwendwa; Nicola Pauli; Ernst Wagner
Apologies: Stefan Eisenhofer, Constanze Kirchner; Lize Kriel; Bernadette Van Haute
Minutes
New members / membership
Mary Claire has completed the team from TUK Nairobi with Suki Mwendwa, Jayne Awuor; Paul the team from Cameroon with Ruth Belinga and Juste Constant Onana Amougui. For South Africa, Runette Kruger will in future take over from Bernadette, who is retiring. Avi warmly welcomed the new members.
Bernadette and Ernst are invited to remain on the panel as senior advisors and support the work of EVC.
Reflection of the summer school
Members stress the importance of the last week we spent together in Kassel/RWS for the understanding of EVC as a network and as a collective. Central to this is mutual learning as well as learning from documenta. Jayne compares EVC's work to that of the artists' collective Taring Padi, whose results bring together the strengths of the individual members to create something excellent together.
However, EVC is also developing an important resource for the transformation of art education. In this context, Osuanyi asks to what extent the website, EVC's most important tool, can be made even more accessible. He suggests including more videos in the future, as this better meets the needs of art educators. Other media such as the game produced in Nairobi can also give important impulses here. It would also be good to publish good practice examples.
Plans for 2022/2023
d15 reflection: In order to make the encounter with documenta lasting, the members agree that each will choose a work from the exhibition that has particularly moved him or her and interpret it for the Objects section of the website – with a view to its special potential for art teaching. The Cape Town Model is the guideline for this work. https://www.explore-vc.org/en/content/tutorial.html Format: Write up and/or video.
Guiding theme for 2023/24: In principle, it is agreed that the joint work in the next two years should have a common guiding theme. The following possibilities were discussed: co-creation of memory; reflection of the transcultural dimension of art education; ecology, sustainability, environment; gender matters. The Expert Panel decided on the base of the discussions at the summer school that “gender matters” is the most relevant topic at the moment. Our activities include:
- Joint virtual exhibition (10 – 15 art works created by students of the participating universities). Each partner decides about the curator.
- Publication: book and/or the journal “image and text”
- Conference: A five days conference in Pretoria, South Africa, in September 2023. Title: Gender Matters
day 1: EVC internal meeting
day 2: Art education at schools
day 3: Art education in higher education
day 4: Art education in higher education
day 5: Art, visual culture, curating
day 6: Heritage, conservation, restitution
Next (virtual) meeting of the Expert Panel: September/October