The School Year 2009/10 at IMMA

As a result of working in the Education & Community Department at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) the programmes I coordinate tend to follow the annual academic cycle rather than the calendar year. So as June approaches, and the school year 2009/10 draws to a close, I’m beginning to look back over the past ten months of work. As we’re all too aware the last ten months in Ireland have been very difficult. Few reading this will have remained immune to the effects of the present economic situation. No less than any other sector of our culture, arts professionals and arts organisations are struggling to survive in this extraordinarily difficult economic situation. If they are not directly affected by funding cuts, arts workers and companies are definitely subject to the knock on effects from the financial hardship being experienced in the rest of society.

In spite of this overall context, I think that there have been some positive developments over the past ten months within Children’s Programmes at IMMA. This year, if there has been one major current running through my programming it has been towards encouraging independence for children, parents and primary teachers in how they can choose to engage with IMMA.

Looking and Responding at IMMA

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There is already a range of learning supports through which children can access contemporary artworks at IMMA.

·       There are free guided tours during weekdays.

·       There is also the annual Primary School Programme which focuses on selected artworks and themes. This programme includes, along with the gallery tour, a practical workshop element.

·       IMMA continues to run its Explorer programme for families for two hours on Sundays. This drop-in workshop is usually based in the galleries. Explorer encourages participating children and their families to respond to their experience of a selected exhibition by using dry art materials.

Essentially these programmes are intended to create some type of structured or mediated opportunities for children to look at and respond to art. These opportunities should enable children:

·       to use their personal experiences as a starting point in exploring art;

·       to use dialogue and debate (particularly with older children) to develop ideas, knowledge and understanding; 

·       and to enable children to build-up a selection of critical and analytical thinking skills in response to artistic and aesthetic experiences.

I think it’s these experiences and thinking skills which will encourage children to develop a life-long pattern of visiting IMMA and other museums and galleries. But it’s also important that later visits do not become dependent on or expectant of high levels of support structures like workshops, interpretive aids, guides etc. While a choice of appropriate learning resources should be available to people of all ages, in a gallery context care needs to be taken that supports don’t replace the individual’s direct experience of and response to actual artworks. 

And this direct experience is the focus of the long view: children, who are now visiting IMMA with their families or schools, will hopefully return with increasing independence as they mature. In this way IMMA, and particularly its permanent collection, can become part of a person’s life-long aesthetic experience, from childhood, through youth, and into adulthood. Hopefully IMMA can provide a cultural source to which people can repeatedly and independently return throughout the changes and developments of their lives.

Primary Teachers and IMMA

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The past ten months has also delivered improved services for primary teachers. Again the aim is to encourage independence in how primary teachers choose to engage with the contemporary art at IMMA. At the start of the current school year, IMMA introduced a new on-line booking system for guided tours and the Primary School Programme. Of course on-line booking systems are a norm now for many arts organisations. But it was important for IMMA to provide a readily accessible tool to primary teachers through which they can see tour availability and make choices about how and when to visit IMMA. The advantage of on-line booking is that it increases the time in which teachers can make bookings (outside classroom or office hours); it lessens the degree to which they have to depend on making direct contact with administrators (such as myself!); and it stops time being wasted on phoning administrators or posting application forms for programmes that may already be fully booked.  

The IMMA website also allows teachers participating in the IMMA Primary school Programme to access relevant exhibition notes on-line. Obviously the web offers a huge range of other possibilities through which to provide learning supports for visiting teachers and children. IMMA is beginning to take advantage of these opportunities. 

IMMA continues to provide opportunities to primary teachers for in-career development. This academic year has seen the second series of Saturday workshops for primary teachers called the Curriculum & Contemporary Art. The aim of this series is to increase primary teacher’s personal experience of contemporary artworks and build on their confidence to engage with contemporary practices. I have written a more extensive review of the Curriculum & Contemporary Art elsewhere in Practice.ie.

New IMMA publications for children

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During this academic year IMMA has launched or developed some publication projects which will hopefully support families and class groups in engaging with artworks from the IMMA Collection.

Since August 2009 IMMA has published a seasonal trail designed for visiting families. Each IMMA Trail (so far August, Winter and Spring) contains a map of the West Wing galleries and a map of the grounds of IMMA. The maps show the locations of about 12 artworks from the IMMA Collection. The text about each work can be read to, by, or with children. It’s intended that teachers or parents can use the trail to bring children around IMMA without necessarily having to take part in a structured programme or a mediated tour. The trails are free and available at points around IMMA.  

Into 2010/2011

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Later this year, it’s planned to switch from publishing these seasonal trails to producing a trio of themed trails which group outdoor collection artworks according to the materials with which they have been made: 1. Bronze; 2. Steel; 3. Stone, Wood & Plants.

Finally, IMMA is almost ready to launch its new series of children’s publications called Our Collection. Based on artworks from the IMMA Collection, Our Collection is presented in four separately themed packs.

Each pack contains 12 images, along with relevant information and illustrations about the respective images and artists. Each pack has a separate theme that connects the images contained within.

·       People & Portraits

·       Nature & The World Around Us

·       Stories & Memories

·       Journeys & Maps

Again, as with the IMMA Trail, it is intended that the text in each pack can be read to, by, or with children. The text aims to enable children to develop ways of looking at and thinking about modern and contemporary art. This series is accompanied by a booklet for primary school teachers which offers a rationale for engaging children with contemporary art and shows some ways in which a visit to IMMA can support teachers in their classroom work. 

Because of the temporary nature of exhibitions and loans from the IMMA Collection, the series Our Collection is intended to enable teachers and children to have more ready and independent access to the images from the Collection, particularly when those images are not available in the IMMA galleries or are separated from an Irish audience by geographic distance.

It is important, of course, to note that nothing can replace the first-hand encounter of an art experience; regardless of the artwork being a painting, a sculpture, a performance or an installation. However it is intended that this series of publications will give children an idea of the breadth of modern and contemporary art practices and concepts. It is also hoped that the images in Our Collection will encourage children, families and teachers to visit IMMA or other venues to experience the actual artworks.

Why dive?

Why Dive? 

Understanding the stages of development of a child helps to open a two way door between our world as adults and the child’s world. We often say that communication is important and yet it is only when communication has to be thought about and considered carefully that we realise the opportunities and challenges presented to us, especially when communicating and working with constantly morphing children as they grow.

Understanding the developmental stages through which children pass facilitates better communication, whether expressed through words, art, music, poetry or any medium.  In this article, I will highlight some of the key changes that are happening for the children that artists in residence, and other artists, often are working with on projects. By providing this small level of insight, I will hopefully encourage you to explore further in this area so that you and the children with whom you work and play in the future will have experiences that will be forever imprinted on your hearts and minds. The age group covered is mainly primary school age, however each child’s development will vary considerably, so we usually refer to stages of development and keep the age ranges quite broad.

An example of the type of experience that I mean is the use of the poem quoted above, ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’ by Spike Milligan. Reading this with a group of four to five year olds for the first time is fantastic; when I have done this in the past, I often can hardly help laughing just from the rhythm of the words, while a child who is mastering their language development and beginning to play with words is often fascinated by the sounds, the made-up words, the whole lilting fun and the sight of the adult obviously enjoying it too. Language is one important aspect of a child’s development. Typically, the main areas of development are broken down into SPICE: this is

•  Social
•  Physical
• Intellectual / Cognitive
• Emotional

with some of these naturally grouping together in practice. No one area can be totally separated from the others, however a rough guide can be given, along with the typical ways in which activities can be linked to these areas.

Physical Development

Physical Development

Some of the physical changes that children experience at this stage are growth spurts; motor skill development; self sufficiency in personal care; puberty.

Growth spurts happen periodically, the obvious one for example is in infancy. However, as a child moves to the middle years of childhood they often experience more of these, with arms and legs shooting out of clothes at an alarming rate often in a short space of time. For example, a ten year old boy may go on summer holidays one shape, and return afterwards with a new shape. The impact of this can be first and foremost clumsiness as the boy adjusts to the new demands of this body. Self consciousness also will affect him, perhaps he now towers above his mates and wants to shrink down and be more like them.

Adults working with children going through such a phase can support them, for example  by unobtrusively being aware and making it easier if they are temporarily clumsy, making sure there is enough space between tables, that jars of water or paint are not likely to be knocked over thus adding to the child’s self-consciousness.

Motor skill development is still proceeding in these middle years, with gross motor skills still developing up to and including adolescence. Motor skills are the control over their bodily movements, broken down into fine and gross – fine being the detailed movements of fingers, hands and gross being the large body movements used in walking, jumping, running and games such as tennis. Often a child will have developed a good sense of their body, and be displaying early proficiency with their large movements only to have a temporary setback when a growth spurt occurs.

Self sufficiency, especially in personal care is a core part of these middle years with children able and crucially keen to now bathe, shower, dress and otherwise look after their bodily needs. This helps to foster a sense of independence and children are generally keen to move along this path.

Puberty also happens in these years, and as with growth spurts can render children self conscious. For example, some young girls who mature early, perhaps as young as eight, this can be a time that not only brings the obvious physical changes but it also impacts on their emotions. Adults will be mindful of these possibilities, Respect for the growing need for privacy and the provision of facilities as for self-sufficiency will make life easier for children.

Experimenting with art that engages a lot  of or the whole body will give children the opportunity to become used to their changing shapes, and can help them to practice control over their movements.

Image above from Helene Hugel of Helium

Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development

• Development is ongoing – in and out of school
• Cognitive development is rapid particularly in the middle school years
• Logic and understanding improving
• Reading, writing and calculating skills emerging
• Reasoning skills take their time

Sometimes people will box in cognitive development as something that happens during school time, an academic exercise, whereas in reality children are rapidly joining the dots up as they begin to make sense of the wider world, and connect all aspects of their learning. Often at this stage children will begin to pay attention to the news for example, and start to reason about cause and effect of things going on around them, although the speed of this process varies considerably from child to child, and with the style of teaching and learning presented to them – active participatory learning is of enormous benefit.

Children’s needs at this stage are for realistic expectations of what they can and cannot do; often a listening ear; stimulation and variety with many opportunities for learning; space to try out ideas and thoughts; encouragement, especially specific encouragement such as ‘I notice you’ve really mastered that metalwork shape you’ve been working on’; an adult to answer questions or help with finding answers; freedom to explore, become an independent learner with a safe place to try out new ideas.

Image "Stepping-Stones" by Anna Rosenfelder

Social and Emotional Developments

Social

In the earlier years, children focus on their close family group. Older children begin to look outwards, and start to recognise shared interests with some other children; this begins to lead to friendships based on interests rather than just living near each other for example. Some features of this stage are:

• Rules are accepted and developed in play, often being very important to the child.
• Sense of Right and Wrong develops
• Empathy gets stronger
• Moral Reasoning emerges
• Problem solving ability developing (linked with their cognitive development)
• Sense of individuality becoming stronger

Emotional

Emotional Development encompasses and is affected by all the other areas. For middle years children, their self awareness is developing rapidly, and an increasing consciousness of their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, this is often the stage at which a child will say ‘I can’t do art’ and at which a sensitive supportive adult will encourage the child by explaining that is a natural feeling and that now is the time for technique to begin to be worked on.  Children will have a desire to become more independent, but often value the fact that they can call on an adult when needed. Their self-esteem will be enhanced by the gradual building of confidence with support and encouragement, and they are gaining increasing emotional self-control.

Adults can help them to feel loved, valued; they can provide security and offer respect  and above all can accept the child for who they are as an individual. When the child may regress for whatever reason, the adult can be patient and help the child to express their feeling sin words, and learn to manage their emotions appropriately. 

In conclusion

I trust that this small glimpse into a child’s developing world will help to open that two-way door, and will stimulate interest among artists working with children to find out more and be encouraged that their work is itself such a valuable medium for affording children opportunities for true self expression and development.

Image by Julie Forrester

Social and Cultural Impact

During the 1980s and 90s the arts were a lightning rod in what we called the "culture wars.” American conservatives stigmatized the arts as a representation of "liberal," "immoral," "permissive," or "irresponsible" culture that threatened the traditions and values of the nation. Enflamed controversies stirred around the appropriation of funds to public agencies that supported the arts, and grants to arts organizations and artists that challenged political, religious, or moral conventions. Conservatives unearthed and aggravated a deep layer of populist resentment of the arts as a marker of status, wealth, and privilege. In effect, argued the right, artists and arts organizations had a license to behave as they did because they had class privileges that most Americans lacked. This devastating combination – moralism and populism -- effectively smashed conventional arguments for the arts as public goods.

In response arts advocates (in both education and in general) began developing new kinds of arguments that characterized the arts as vehicles for achieving non-controversial public goods – for fighting crime and truancy, advancing economic or community development, for example. These “instrumental” arguments were designed to change the subject from morals, patriotism, or elitism of artists and the arts. Theaters draw people to commercial areas at night, and crime drops when there are more people on the street. People go out to eat at restaurants before the show, so theater stimulates economic activity. By the 1990s the arts began to be linked to higher levels of student achievement as well.

These instrumental arguments are still very much in use here. Just a short time ago, the leading national arts advocacy organization placed an advertisement supporting the inclusion of funds to support the arts in the national stimulus/recovery package that was being debated by Congress. Its headline: “The Arts = JOBS!”

(photo above by Randy OHC 'Children Discovering Van Gogh' Creative Commons on Flickr.com)

The Arts in Education

As the culture wars raged, a closely related battle was waged over American pubic education. In 1983, a government report called A Nation at Risk that claimed that US students were falling badly behind those in other countries shook the foundations of public schooling here. It described "a rising tide of mediocrity" in our schools that required prompt attention. The price of failure would be the loss of a workforce that had made the US the dominant economic power. A Nation at Risk made education a matter of national security, and it became the foundational document of the contemporary movement for school reform movement. It recommended longer school days, more homework, higher standards for teachers and students, and a curriculum of "new basics" -- which were actually "old basics" plus the emerging technology associated with computing. (This was 1983, remember.) The report barely mentioned the arts.

The report’s prescription climaxed with passage of legislation called No Child Left Behind early in the Bush presidency. No Child dramatically narrowed curriculum (squeezing and eroding the place of the arts in schools even more) by elevating high stakes standardized testing of just two subjects -- math and reading. And it imposed penalties on schools that failed to improve student test scores. In practice this punitive strategy fell disproportionally on schools serving low-income and minority students – precisely the schools that needed the most help.

That is the context in which advocates must make the case for the arts in US schools. (Is it appreciably different in Ireland, the UK or the EU? Sir Ken Robinson's report to the UK, All Our Futures, seems a sophisticated version of the instrumental case for arts education, arguing that the 21st century will demand higher order thinking skills, including creativity, and that the arts are a pathway to those skills.) So it seems quite natural that folks would start to look into the possibility of advancing the arts in schools through instrumental arguments that link arts learning to higher student academic performance in general, and better test scores in particular.

(Photo above is 'Children's art work refugee camp' by chrisrobinson1945 creative commons)

Teaching Artists

It also seems quite natural that some arts educators would start a focused exploration of how the arts could contribute purposefully to raising student academic performance. New arts education programs in several cities, including my home town, Chicago, began to develop distinctive curricular and pedagogical strategies to contribute to efforts to improve schools in some of the toughest districts. They intentionally "integrated" the arts across the curriculum through sustained partnerships between artists (they are now most frequently called "teaching artists") and classroom teachers. In addition to breaking down the barriers between schools and the community, these programs also broke down the boundaries between subjects by organizing curriculum around meaningful questions. They made learning far more "hands on" and deliberately brought students' own experiences, ideas, and perspectives into the classroom. And they linked art making processes with "parallel processes" in other subjects. (See Renaissance in the Classroom: Arts Integration and Meaningful Learning by Gail Burnaford, Arnold Aprill, and Cynthia Weiss and AIMprint: New Relationships in the Arts and Learning by Cynthia Weiss and Amanda Lichtenstein). Early evaluation studies of these programs in Chicago and Minneapolis showed significant results, including significant correlations to rising test scores.

These efforts were viewed with scepticism, though, by some in arts education research. They argued that the correlations did not constitute proof that the arts caused student performance to rise. And they were deeply disturbed by the possibility that education policy makers would reduce the arts to the status of “handmaidens” to the academic curriculum. For these critics, the reasons to teach the arts were intrinsic: we should teach the arts for art’s sake.(i)

(i)Winner, E., Hetland, L., “Mute those claims: no evidence (yet) for a causal link between arts study and academic achievement”, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 34, No. 3-4, Fall/Winter, 11 – 75, 2000.

(Photo above is 'Young artists and their art' by Robert Couse-Baker creative commons)

For 'Arts' Sake'?

But what, after all is said and done, are the “intrinsic” values of the arts? What is “art’s sake”?

A few years ago a team of researchers from the RAND Corporation, a large US policy and research institution, concluded that intrinsic benefits could be divided into three broad categories – personal (captivation and pleasure), social (expanded capacity for empathy and cognitive growth), and public (development of social bonds and expression of communal meanings)(ii). What’s most interesting about this formulation is that it moves the focus from the work of art itself – the play, painting, or poem – to the artist’s acts of engagement, imagination, empathy, cognition, reflection, and creation, or those acts of engagement, imagination, cognition, reflection, and empathy that lead an audience or a student into the world evoked by a work of art. It dispenses with “art’s” sake and recognizes that the value of the arts lies in their value to people, to students. Eric Booth, a leader in US arts education for the last thirty years, insightfully argues that the intrinsic benefits of the arts are related more to its “verbs” than its “nouns.”

It also implicitly recognizes as false the classical division between thought and feeling, which lies behind the conventional association of the arts with affect and emotion, but not cognition and thought. The subordinate place of the arts in the academic hierarchy is deeply rooted in the Platonic and Cartesian model of the mind – a hierarchy that privileges rational thought and devalues emotion and instinct. That model has, in effect, doomed arts advocates in education. But modern cognitive and neuroscience is now showing that it is utterly wrong. The mind’s rational, logical, and analytic functions are actually fully integrated with and dependent on emotional and instinctual mental operations. Making and engaging art is a superb illustration of the principle discovery of contemporary cognitive and neuroscience: that our cognitive and emotional lives are not separate domains.

(ii)McCarthy, K., Ondaatje, E., Zakaras, L., and Brooks, A., Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts RAND Corporation, 2004.

(Photo above is 'Girls playing classical music' by dcaseyphoto (creative commons)

In conclusion

Looked at from this perspective, the distinction between the arts’ intrinsic and instrumental benefits also begin to evaporate. The arts are ways of engaging, exploring, and finding pleasure in the world, making sense and meaning from it, and thinking, expressing and communicating through a medium. Of course, that is also a perfectly good definition of education itself, isn’t it? It should not come as a surprise that students of the arts make cognitive gains. And it is perfectly reasonable to assume that those gains might express themselves sometimes in the results of standardized tests and many other ways. Intrinsic and instrumental are, like the subjects in the curriculum, ways of categorizing the world that can be helpful. But they can also blind us to the complexity of the world, and they have in this debate about the benefits of the arts in education.

It is not clear yet how far the new Obama administration will go in reframing the principles and strategies for improving our educational system, but there are meaningful indications that there will be more interest in arts education than there has been. Those who advocate arts education here need to move beyond their internal disputes over its value so they can take advantage of new opportunities as they develop. One of the remarkable things the arts teach is that there are multiple perspectives and multiple answers to complex questions. It is not either intrinsic or instrumental, but both.

(Photo above is '47 365 Music, Maestro!' by spud (creative commons) 

Defining and testing the definition

Collaboration is defined as cooperation, and cooperation as joint work toward a common end. Words which closely relate are alliance, association, combination, joint effort, participation, partnership, teamwork, co-action and synergy. There are differences within this combination of words in terms of describing how an artist engages with children and young people. I would not necessarily relate association and partnership, for example, when thinking of past experiences working with children and young people. Nor participation and joint effort. While the overall openness of the word may make it the most obvious choice for describing one’s practice, perhaps it is simply because it is so broad that it does not rest easily with many artists.

In eight years of working with children and young people, I have experienced, as most of us working in this area have, many tipping of the scales. Within projects, I have lead children and young people into predetermined creative territory and then again I have led them into more unknown creative ground, being only slightly ahead of their footsteps. On the other hand, I have walked alongside into making and I have been led in directions I could not have determined. I have definitely delivered workshops and imparted skills to groups of young people, yet I have also been part of a wonderful synergistic unfolding of work through mutual communication and equal enthusiasm.

Whilst working as artist-in-residence at The Ark, Cultural Centre for Children, insights and challenges in relation to the term collaboration, both in the actual engagement with the children and in the articulation of this engagement, became intensified. Within this residency I worked for a three month period with a number of schools groups in ‘one-off’ workshops. At the latter end of the residency, I worked with four chosen school groups, each on a weekly basis over eight weeks. In between I had a dedicated period for my own studio development. In short, I may have been facilitator, independent artist and collaborator in respect of each strand of this structure. However the boundaries were not so delineated.

In the case of the one-off workshops, I began with a structure for the first workshop, but thereafter wove a high percentage of discussion and viewing of work into the process. What resulted was a sequence of delivery of workshops by the artist, the concepts and practicalities of which were developed through communication with children on an ongoing basis. Each group of children were given the space and time to give creative input, which they entrusted to me and which I subsequently presented to the succeeding group in an achievable shape. So the cycle continued in an undetermined direction with input from both artist and children.

Image courtesy of The Ark, Cultural Center for Children: personalized willow structures created by national school children on one-off workshops with artist Yvonne Cullivan

A range of approaches

In his interview for Practice.ie, Gareth Kennedy refers to ‘true collaboration’ as creating a ‘hybrid of something’. The formula he offers to describe the process is ‘one plus one equals three’ wherein it is difficult to separate the individual input of those involved. He has an established collaborative practice with fellow artist Sarah Browne, which embodies this formula. He believes that applying this approach when working with young people, would take a lot of time to develop and also a very open approach on the artist’s behalf. Gareth usually gives ‘parameters and limitations’ to his workshops, therefore providing a framework to the work, within which there are varying levels of input on the artist’s part. Within this framework, he tries to instill a sense of transparency of the process, the aims and the outcome and a sense of ownership. However, because there is a certain amount of leading, he is not comfortable using the term collaboration to describe the exchange.

Conversely to Kennedy’s definition, in a recent discussion amongst the artists working on The Nature of Sligo, it was suggested that collaboration always contains a lead role. Cooperation was offered as a more appropriate term for a joint effort. Yet some artists argued that cooperation indicated adhering to the wishes or rules of others. It is no doubt true that artists involved on projects with young people often have more time than the young people to think about, to develop ideas within and to plan a structure for the exchange. The artist might be said to naturally invest more and therefore to lead to some extent.

In her interview for Practice.ie, Ann Henderson grapples with the extent to which she leads the work with the children in her residency at Ballydown National School. She approached the residency with ‘an open structure’ in order to find ‘points of common interest’. She ‘gives ideas, takes responses, responds’ and the work develops in an more organic than linear way. She describes a two-way system of conversation and ideas between herself and the children. In theory, she sees herself giving the children ‘a universally wide scope’ for input and believes that they should be ‘informing all parts of the project’.

In a recent interview for Practice.ie, Fiona Whelan talks about her investment in the Rialto Youth Project and how she has encouraged a similar level of engagement on the part of the young people and the youth workers she works with. Having built a strong relationship with the local community, she offered a new project idea, “What’s the Story?”, which is based on collecting and responding to stories of those living in the area relating to power sharing. The project idea was advertised on a voluntary basis to youth workers and to young people. In this way, a collective has been established with the artist, a number of youth workers and young people to develop the project through dialogue. Because people have volunteered and the project relates to their personal stories, the level of investment has become more equal on the part of the artist, youth workers and young people. Fiona sees it as successful collaboration when ‘everyone who walks away (from a project) can describe it in a way that makes sense to them individually’.

Image courtesy of The Ark, Cultural Center for Children: "Place of Wonder" created by children from St. Andrew's Resource Center working with artist Yvonne Cullivan

Degrees of separation

In trying to create a balance of leadership in the final phase of my residency at The Ark, I brought both the work of the first three months and my own unfinished studio response, which was highly informed by the former, to four selected schools groups. I presented the concepts and processes within as open for discussion and development in whatever way that might occur. With one group in particular what occurred was an unusual experience for me. They examined what I presented, became interested in a single undeveloped strand within my own studio response and over the subsequent six weeks, created, with my assistance, an installation of individual works. It was a manifestation of my original undeveloped thought that I could not have imagined. I feel in some way that it is mine and yet remain aware that each piece is very personal and individual to the child that created it and in fact belongs to them.

While Ann Henderson works with the children, she maintains a studio practice of her own ideas in development. She clearly divides the two, and yet as they inform one another, she grapples with the boundaries of this division. They are gray areas of ownership, both in terms of ideas and actual work. Similarly, when I had gone back to my studio in the middle of my residency at The Ark, I had found it difficult to think in terms of a separate studio practice, yet the ideas and indeed the making from the previous three months were hard to separate from my own thoughts and processes as an artist. I found that I could not make some complete, polished piece of work in complete isolation from such a high intensity communication process. Making the installation with the group felt much more natural and yet was difficult to define in terms of ownership.

Sometimes the extent to which an artist maintains a studio practice separately to their work with children, can inform the level of collaboration with which they approach their work with children. Gareth Kennedy comments that he does not see his own practice as being ‘communicable’ outside of the context in which it is made. While there may be similarities in process and there is an underlying rational in carrying out this process, he sees his studio practice and his work with young people as ‘two-different hats’. Meanwhile, Ruby Wallis is currently witnessing a correlation between her own studio practice and her engagement with children in Rathcabbin National School, by which she is very excited. She talks about the advantage of following a theme that is natural to her and of using strengths and interests when working with children and young people, to perhaps create more meaningful work. Fiona Whelan talks about the transition from artist as painter to artist who creates as part of a collective with young people and youth workers. Her work in Rialto is her practice.

Image courtesy of Yvonne Cullivan: Still from "Memory of Place" video and willow installation, created in the artists' studio in response to her work with children at The Ark, Cultural Center for Children, 2007

Collected ideas on Collaboration

Through five artists meetings and through eight interviews to date, there is some cohesion of thought as to what collaboration means and what makes for most successful or positive collaboration. This is a summary of the findings so far:

• Artists have collectively agreed that the process involves communicating and being clear in your communication; explaining what you do and being assertive in your working methods.
• The process itself is referred to as a 50/50 exchange, as reciprocal sharing between the artist and the child. This sharing refers to ideas, skills, creativity, workload. The artist can have a technical or a physical input into the creative process or both.
• It is expressed as a fusion of ideas and then again as a method of art-making in itself.
• Ethically, the process involves valuing the input of every individual involved, along with willingness and respect and open-ness.
• Practically, it needs time; for meetings, planning, dialogue, notes, diaries, to make decisions, to reach deadlines.
• Those involved in the process need to be realistic, to have clearly defined aims and objectives, to recognise the different roles and strengths of the collective. These elements can be, or should be, put in place at the designing, planning and creating stages of an artist’s engagement on a project.

Image of artists in discussion at a recent Practice.ie Professional Development Day

Extracting what is most important

At a recent meeting between artists and teachers on The Nature of Sligo, one teacher spoke of the many small incidences that occur during each contact day when the artist is present in the school. He related the difficulty of adequately communicating the many decisions, conversations, experiments and responses that take place and indeed questioned the necessity to do so, when the very process of this engagement, the very fact that it was taking place was for him, the most important factor.

Ultimately I agree that it’s the aspiration itself toward open two-way communication and this endeavour through practical processes that are of most importance and value educationally, creatively and socially: the experience itself and the possibilities created through it, more so than what is actually made. Yet as artists working in this area, explaining what we do is a necessity - to participants, to our contemporaries and, most often, to funding institutes or organizations. Communicating our approach gives an understanding of the variety of practices that exist and helps us to negotiate the terms of a project or working relationship or leads us to find working environments which best suit our development.

In light these individual experiences, the parameters of working collaboratively with children and young people continue to be shift. Collaboration is a generous term. I think its relevance can be preserved if artists working with children and young people can constantly explore what it presents individually and honestly communicate their findings by choosing from the repertoire of words it presents, those which suit the individual nature of a particular project, at a particular time.

Image courtesy of Yvonne Cullivan: collection of drawings made by children in Scoil Naisiunta Bhride with Yvonne Cullivan on The Nature of Sligo Residency.

From the Commissioners' viewpoint

from Commissioning Art in the Publics Sphere by Helen Carey

• Introduction & about the author
• From the Commissioners' viewpoint
• From the Artist’s point of View
• From the Publics’ point of view

Whether the Commissioner is a local authority, a private individual or company, an interest or community group, work placed in the public domain has imperatives:

• it should be of high quality
• it should be a work that does not endanger its Publics, or not without clear warning
• it should respect its publics
• it should expect and be prepared for responses.

Technical aspects of a commission regarding health and safety, durability and material appropriateness are governed by rules around the Publics Sphere, concerning local or national authority permission, normally with clear agendas and politics at play.  The moral dimension governing a commission can be where a grey area also reveals agendas, power structures and frameworks for social engineering.  While not always negative, it is important to realise that Publics for an Art Work will subliminally or consciously recognise the subject of the Art Work, what the Art Work wishes to achieve, and what is achieved.  Realising this at any early stage of any commissioned work in the public Sphere is key for any project. 

For example, agendas around regeneration and community development are at play when work is placed in an area where there is substantial re-development of derelict areas, such as happened in Bristol’s city centre in 2000 on its gas-contaminated land.  In an area of financial power such as Chicago’s Millennium Square, Anish Kapoor’s large reflecting sculpture Cloud Gate shows infinity, where the individual’s place becomes a tiny speck in a vast surface, the strength of commissioners AT&T is apparent to all.  It is important to recognise that this is all clear to their publics.

In order to reflect this recognition, at least 6 months of a 2 year project should be spent developing the Initial Brief, which is the product of the consideration of the process the commission will adopt.  Within this period the need for a careful step by step approach alongside keeping abreast of movements within the Arts sector is crucial.  Why?  Within this time, the true aims of the Commission, which may move from the initial aims, will become clear, and in this period of development without the public gaze, mistakes are admissible and expected, and carry no public consequence.  It is a period when all the limitations as well as the potential become clearer, and while it is impossible to rule out every variable in a process, it goes a long way towards evolving the framework to allow the potential of the Commission to be a true representation of the aims.

One of the truths that emerge from experience of Art in the Publics Sphere is that the more time given to planning and process the more successful is the final Commission.  Another truth is that while wide consultation of publics engaged with the space and the spirit of the Commission is desirable, the decision should rest with a manageable number of individuals nominated for their clear expertise and activism in relevant areas outlined and recommended by a development team, advised by a non-voting expert in Art in the Publics Sphere, in a transparent and detailed manner.

Another suggestion is that, when the Artist is selected in the period of contracting, discussion around the brief be re-opened with a view to fine tuning aims and objectives with the input of the Artist, without prejudice to the outline of the aims of the project, towards settling on the Final Brief, which is that towards which the Artist works, and to which they are finally contractually tied.  This allows for maximum creativity with the expertise of the convened panel to apply and space for additional information to emerge – a museum director once advised for a new museum to leave a large part empty at the time of opening, to allow for the deluge of ideas following its launch – this was a high risk but highly successful for the museum’s relevance and responsiveness.

From the Artist’s point of View

from Commissioning Art in the Publics Sphere by Helen Carey

• Introduction & about the author
• From the Commissioners' viewpoint
• From the Artist’s point of View
• From the Publics’ point of view

If reaching a wide audience is an aim of Artists for their work, a work of art in the Publics Sphere is capable of delivering the greatest fulfilment to this, over the longest time and with the promise of having meaning in many people’s daily lives. Inspiring affection, controversy and dislike among many other emotions, the Work of Art in the Publics Sphere must also avoid accidental offence, be robust and observe public health and safety regulations to endure.

Often contradictory in wishing to excite and yet be above controversy, the Publics Sphere Art Work has the added issue of being of the moment of commission and yet having to endure over years, of being classic. The notion of risk in subject and in materials is attractive, and yet the potential consequences can make the commission unpopular and disappointing. This is at the heart of the truth for the Artist around Art in the Publics Sphere. The answer requires that the Artist stay true to what makes them comfortable, and engage fully with the process.

It is worth noting here that The Angel of the North by Anthony Gormley in Gateshead was highly unpopular at its installation, and has since gone on to become beloved. The Initial Brief reflects the priorities of the Commission for the Artists developing a proposal and this should be the only point at which the direction of Artist can be controlled by the Commissioner. It is therefore a document which should take time in interpretation and even if the final work moves away from the Initial Brief, its heart should appear in the finished work. For the Artist, it is important that the Brief communicate the key parameters, but ideally there should be space for the Artist to input into the Final Brief.

From the Publics’ point of view

from Commissioning Art in the Publics Sphere by Helen Carey

• Introduction & about the author
• From the Commissioners' viewpoint
• From the Artist’s point of View
• From the Publics’ point of view

As indicated at the beginning of the essay, Art in the Publics Sphere replaces the phrase Public Art – why?

Because around the notion of Public Art is an understanding of solid monolith, imposing edifice or of Art in constructed civic spaces.  Many boundaries around where the public space for Art is have broken down.  For example, even with restrictions around entry rights, shops, libraries, hospitals, prisons, schools and residential communities can all have projects in their spaces which are considered public, and the understandings around the place for Art has extended in an open ended manner – such as graffiti projects, formerly criminal damage, or dance in public squares. So there is a need to move to less restrictive understandings of Art in Public Spaces. 

Thought once to be monolithic, the Public has emerged as complicated, even having inconsistent and contradictory characteristics.  It is therefore acknowledged as impossible to make Art for a public without having to think of many publics.  A public space may have to host many publics over a period of time, and surely an Artist should not reduce their work to catering for just one, or on the other hand, how can catering for all possible permutations produce an exciting work? 

A real way of dealing with this is to manage the expectations that the publics may have around what the Art work aims to do – the marketing around Art works attracts maximum publicity but often leaves the work with the task of matching expectations, an inappropriate task for an Artist to have to consider.  However as the real world demands publicity, the publics should be aware of the process and of the aims, but also of the Artist’s oeuvre along with the proposal as early as possible.

In 2008, when many of the cornerstones of the world’s functioning shift on a daily basis, cracks open for new understanding. Art in the Publics Sphere can seek a new understanding, with participants being inter-dependent for a successful Art Work.  Art might be a vehicle for understanding but in the Publics Sphere, more experimentation and risk can be accommodated if the Final Brief involves the Artist, if the Artist works with the Commissioners at an early stage remaining true, and if the Publics concerned are happy to align their expectations of Art, allowing Art to play an imaginative role.

About the author

Helen Carey is an independent curator and project manager.  Formerly Public Art Project Manager at Bristol, Director of Galway Arts Centre, and inaugural Director of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, Helen currently works on Irish and international projects.  Her specific interests are National Cultural Identity and the Public Sphere.

What are "Big Ideas"?

From The Arts and the 21st Century Curriculum by Arnold Aprille

• Introduction & about the author
• What are "Big Ideas"?
• The value of a "Big Idea" approach
• What will this new approach look like?
• About the author

What are Big Ideas? We haven’t been very good at explaining what we mean by the concept, though like the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, we think we know it when we see it.

But that is not good enough. Many of us who are working to understand the role of contemporary arts in contemporary education are putting a lot of thought into how we best describe and document what we know to be powerful in practice (and to be weak in scaling up and in pleading its case at the education policy level).

Here are some first attempts at a description:

Big ideas usually reflect upon processes, typically have both metaphoric and concrete elements, and as American arts education activist Eric Booth points out, usually have the quality of verbs rather than nouns. Of something happening, or something transformed or transforming, encountered or encountering. Relational. They contain a bit of poetry and mystery, but are not so abstract that they can’t be investigated.

Not every idea is a Big Idea. Little Ideas are just that. Little ideas. Big Ideas are intriguing. They invite questions and multiple answers. They create a spirit of inquiry.

CAPE classrooms have investigated such Big Ideas as..

• Structure (“How are such different things as governments, bodies, buildings, and dances structured?”),
• Harmony (“How do different elements work with each other in satisfying ways?),
• Scale (“When is something big and when is something little? Compared to what?”), Shape (“What are the shapes in our world, and how do they fit together?”),
• Mapping (“How do we make symbols of how our world is arranged?”),
• Stewardship of the Earth (“How can we take better care of the planet?”),
• Captivity/Freedom(“How did Japanese Americans maintain hope in WWII internment camps?”), etc.

A laundry list of types of ancient Native American dwellings is not a Big Idea, but an investigation of what made each of those houses homes is. Naming the names of dinosaurs is not a Big Idea. Developing theories of dinosaur extinction is.

Big Ideas like these have activated enthusiastic teachers and learners and produced extraordinary art in CAPE classrooms. But our partners have tended to either love the idea of Big Ideas, or else found the whole concept to be impenetrable. What we lacked was a workable definition. And that’s where our colleague Catherine Main, Director of the Early Childhood Program in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (and a CAPE parent) has come to our rescue, sharing a definition of Big Ideas that may save us from our tongue-tied enthusiasm:

“A big idea is an overarching idea that unifies, inspires, and resonates with children, an idea that is rich with possibilities and permits teachers and children to work together in many ways.” - Chaille, C. (2008). Constructivism across the Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms:  Big Ideas as Inspiration.

Unifies. Inspires. Resonates with children. Rich with possibilities. Permits collaborative work. Simple, elegant, accurate, and USEFUL. Just what a definition should be.

The value of a "Big Idea" approach

From The Arts and the 21st Century Curriculum by Arnold Aprille

• Introduction & about the author
• What are "Big Ideas"?
• The value of a "Big Idea" approach
• What will this new approach look like?
• About the author

So now that we can describe it, what is the value of using this Big Idea and Inquiry approach?

“…when curriculum is organized around concepts, there is room for multiple inquiry questions, multiple approaches to teaching, and multiple products in terms of student work in various disciplines and media. A concept is a mental construct that is timeless, universal, and abstract. Concepts are on a higher level of abstraction than topics or facts. Teachers are not asked to think conceptually when they plan curriculum. They are typically asked to organize around topics, ‘themes’, or activities, rather than concepts that translate…Standards that teachers rely on to guide their curriculum are often narrow and too numerous to teach well…There are often so many standards that the unit loses focus. Inquiry allows teachers to cluster those standards in a meaningful way in order to integrate content and build on each other’s work.”
- Gail Burnaford, Building Curriculum, Community, and Leadership in Elementary Schools: A Study of Professional Development for Arts Teachers (2008) in press, referencing the work of H.L. Erickson

This allows teachers to connect teaching across the curriculum (interdisciplinary thinking) and across grades (a “spiral curriculum”, in which Big Ideas are visited and revisited in increasing depth across a student’s school career). What this more conceptual approach to curriculum does is suggest a whole new set of content standards. The province of Queensland in Australia is entirely rethinking instructional content around New Basics Curriculum Organizers.

Each New Basics cluster (each one is a Big Idea) is designed to help students answer a critical question:

• Life pathways and social futures: Who am I and where am I going?
• Multiliteracies and communications media: How do I make sense of and communicate with the world?
• Active citizenship: What are my rights and responsibilities in communities, cultures, and economies?
• Environments and technologies: How do I describe, analyze, and shape the world around me?

This appears to be a very promising pathway, and teaching artists have an important role to play in assuring that break-throughs in curriculum design such as the New Basics experiment become concrete, innovative, and expressive. And as we move into more contemporary teaching and learning, how are we going to remain rigorous about our work, and how will we assist educators in transitioning into a broader sense of curriculum? Our good colleagues at CapeUK (www.capeuk.com) introduced us to a set of criteria  (developed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the body that oversees British curriculum development) for looking at student creativity in the classroom in a more fine-grained manner, a set of criteria that we are finding very useful.

We are now documenting evidence of students:

• Questioning and challenging
• Making connections and seeing relationships
• Envisaging what might be
• Exploring ideas, keeping options open
• Reflecting critically on ideas, actions, and outcomes

This is not only changing our thinking as an arts partnership organization, but is also assisting our partner teachers and artists in moving into a more contemporary approach to both art and education.

What will this new approach look like?

From The Arts and the 21st Century Curriculum by Arnold Aprille

• Introduction & about the author
• What are "Big Ideas"?
• The value of a "Big Idea" approach
• What will this new approach look like?
• About the author

What will this new approach look like?

New inter-cultural global communications systems are creating whole new “languages” (young people are adept, unlike their elders, at multi-tasking and at composing and “reading” multi-media messages), and our young people are growing up in a world full of massive shifts in world populations. Old identities are morphing, the U.S. is rapidly become a bilingual nation, and all the clichés about moving from an industrial economy to an information economy will require a “whole new mind”, to use business writer Daniel Pink’s phrase.

Access to information on the internet and students’ access to new tools for composing, producing, and distributing films, texts, images, music, blogs, podcasts, websites, etc. will shift all education toward increasingly student centered learning, more project based learning, greater need for “soft” 21st century learning skills (“comfort with ideas and abstractions, analysis and synthesis, creativity, innovation, self-discipline, organization, flexibility, ability to work on a team”), more cross-disciplinary learning, more differentiated instruction, more inter-age work, more connections between life inside and outside schools, more attention to early childhood and to young adult education, and more “real world” tasks.Rapidly changing technologies will call for “just–in-time” learning and flexibility in dealing with technologies that become obsolete before they are perfected.

All this argues for an increasingly integrated curriculum – not just between the arts and other subjects, but between all other content areas as well. New technologies will also support more comprehensive curriculum in the performing arts – moving beyond performing into composing, directing, choreographing, and playwriting.

Another change in the terrain of arts education will be the on-going creation of new classics and new canons. Popular and “outsider” arts are now considered legitimate subjects for arts learning. Students study quilting. There is a classic Jazz program at Lincoln Center in New York City. Film study has become a regular subject in many high schools. Middle-schoolers study computer game design. Most of this was unimaginable twenty years ago.

So let us welcome ourselves into the 21st century! For a navigation map of this brave new world, check out the KnowledgeWorks Foundation Map of Future Forces Affecting Education http://www.kwfdn.org/map/

About the author

Arnold Aprill is Founding and Creative Director of Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE), a network of artists and arts organizations, educators and schools, that are dedicated to school improvement through arts education partnerships. He comes from a background in professional theatre as an award-winning director, producer and playwright. He consults nationally and internationally on the role of the arts in effective school improvement.

aaprill@capeweb.org
http://www.capeweb.org

Background to Garda Vetting

• Introduction
• Background to Garda Vetting
• So, what is Garda Vetting?
• Garda Vetting and the Individual
• Garda Vetting and the Arts
• About the Author
• Print-friendly version of the entire article

After publication of the Murphy Report in 1998, which investigated the sexual abuse of young swimmers, the courts determined that organisations could, in certain situations, be held liable for failing to protect persons in their charge. The subsequent national guidelines for protection and welfare (Children First, Dept Health + Children, 1999) made it clear that organisations offering relevant services have a moral obligation to provide the highest possible standard of care and may be legally responsible in the event of a failure to offer adequate safeguards.

To reduce any potential civil liability, employers must be seen to have taken ‘all reasonable steps’ to ensure guidelines are in place and properly implemented. In developing protection policies, the employer has a dual responsibility - in respect of the service user and the employee. In terms of civil liability, however, the primacy of the vulnerable is the central concern. It could well be the case that aversion to risk and liability is fuelling the demand for vetting more so than genuine concern. The guidelines indicate vetting may be required in situations of substantial or unsupervised access. In practice, this is being interpreted to include any kind of regular contact. There is a perception in some quarters that vetting can provide some kind of PR value or quality assurance.

The legal requirement for employers to obtain a ‘disclosure certificate’ from An Garda applied initially to new employees / contractors in the Health Service, and some agencies that it funded. It has gradually extended to include people taking up employment / providing services in local authorities, schools, care units/homes, residential centres, childcare services, youth work, sports, private security, work with homeless persons, and to arts initiatives in these and other contexts. Vetting has become essential to organisations that act ‘in loco parentis’ (‘in the place of parents’). The extension of its availability into these areas constitutes a major step forward for protection in Ireland.

A dedicated Garda Central Vetting Unit (i) (GCVU) was established in 2002 to deal exclusively with vetting. In 2006, it was significantly strengthened to facilitate the expansion of availability mentioned earlier. The GCVU provides the only official vetting service in the Republic - An Garda do not provide vetting at a local level. Vetting is not freely available - it can only be undertaken for an employer, and applications must be processed through an organisation that is already registered with the Vetting Unit to act as an intermediary for a particular sector or group.

Vetting operates independently of an individual’s rights under Freedom of Information law and it is not the same as getting a Certificate of Character, which can sometimes be required to work or set up a business abroad. Neither of these are substitutes for vetting and employers that insist on these kinds of checks may in fact be in breach of employment laws and/or the individual’s constitutional right to privacy or to earn a living.

(i)The Garda Central Vetting Unit is located in Thurles, Co. Tipperary and can be contacted at 0504 27300.

So, what is Garda Vetting?

• Introduction
• Background to Garda Vetting
• So, what is Garda Vetting?
• Garda Vetting and the Individual
• Garda Vetting and the Arts
• About the Author
• Print-friendly version of the entire article

Garda Vetting is a procedure through which An Garda is asked, with a person’s permission, to confirm whether or not that individual has been convicted of a crime. Employers use the procedure to ensure that individuals convicted of abuse or other crimes are not employed or offered other positions of responsibility for work with children, young people or vulnerable adults.

The Vetting Unit has complete access to criminal records in the Republic of Ireland and limited access in Northern Ireland and the UK. In Northern Ireland, under the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults Order 2003, there are systematic checks of convictions and other relevant matters. While the focus is on protecting children and vulnerable adults, there are also safeguards and due processes for those being vetted, including the right to appeal. An agreement between Ireland and Britain on sharing information on sex offenders is thought to be close and while this is welcome the situation in the two administrations is quite different.

In Ireland, it is an offence to apply for a job or to offer a service which involves access to children or mentally impaired people without first informing the prospective employer of any conviction for a sex offence. The Irish system has over 900 individuals listed on an offender register but does not have adequate monitoring mechanisms. The UK has sophisticated monitoring and supervision of the movement of sex offenders and others known to be a danger and its system includes hard information (of convictions) as well as soft information (of suspicion of posing a risk e.g. cautions, allegations, inquiries, arrests, and charges outstanding or pending). There have been calls recently to extend the UK model to Ireland and we will hear more about this in the debate on a constitutional amendment on children’s rights.

Increased demand of Garda vetting causes delays

To date, the GCVU has registered a number of agencies in the voluntary and statutory sectors to act as vetting organisations. It is estimated that the overall demand for vetting will reach over 400,000 applications each year, significantly higher than the number currently being processed. A lack of capacity partly explains why it takes so long – between 4 and12 weeks - to return a search result. In the future, the GCVU hopes to strengthen practices in relation to both overseas clearance and secure electronic transfer procedures to reduce the timescale for applications.

As part of the GCVU’s registration process, an agency providing vetting services must nominate an Authorised Signatory to liaise with An Garda and manage the workflow. Once approved, s/he undergoes induction and thereafter receives and checks application forms coming from employers and forwards them to the Vetting Unit for certification. When the results come back, s/he provides confirmation to the employer. Registration also requires compliance with a Code of Practice that covers Data Protection and operates within a natural justice framework.

The vetting provider is responsible for the security and safeguarding of any records that are kept, under the strict provisions of Data Protection laws. This is reasonable, given the sensitive and personal nature of the information that has to be provided by the applicant and the individual’s right to privacy. Records are generally destroyed once the employer is satisfied with the veracity of the results and has either provided ‘clearance’ for the individual or, if a disclosure is deemed too serious, withdrawn the offer of work. Within a natural justice framework, decisions should be made after any matter arising has been discussed with the applicant and fair procedures have been followed.

Garda Vetting and the Individual

• Introduction
• Background to Garda Vetting
• So, what is Garda Vetting?
• Garda Vetting and the Individual
• Garda Vetting and the Arts
• About the Author
• Print-friendly version of the entire article

Responsibility for organising Garda vetting lies with the organisation– the individual may not apply. Every organisation has to decide for itself in the context of the job and its own policies whether or not a position requires vetting. Until the law is clarified, and this could be long after the proposed constitutional amendment, there is no clarity on how this should operate - different organisations and sectors are implementing policies differently. And there is no clarity about what should happen in situations where artists are providing private tuition directly.

There are no guidelines on how to determine whether an arts initiative, or an artist, is an organisation or employer. This is a grey area for freelance professionals engaged on temporary, self-determined or independent projects and situations. Many artists ‘engage’ others in their work, including through mentor relationships, and it is not clear whether this constitutes being an employer. Registration as an employer with the Revenue Commissioners will yield an Employers Number - a clear indication of intent - but separate legal status is not provided by simply being ‘self-employed’, or even by registering a Business Name.

In making an application for vetting, it is the individual that completes the application form. The applicant must provide details of every address they have lived at, from birth, including time away from home, e.g. while at college and periods spent abroad. This can be difficult as details fragment in time and people are increasingly mobile. The individual may also be asked to seek vetting from countries in which they have lived. There is no general procedure covering these situations. A new form is thought to be in the pipeline which will introduce the additional necessity to provide proof of identity.

The applicant must disclose any convictions in a court of law. This disclosure is matched against the official records and the results are disclosed to the employer, regardless of their relevance to the proposed work or the gravity or timing of the crime. It is up to the employer to conduct their own risk assessment and determine what constitutes a risk. There are no guidelines, but the individual might expect certain factors - the significance of a disclosure, self-disclosure or lack thereof, subsequent work and rehabilitation record - to be taken into account.

The certification process and vetting results are not portable for the individual. Each new employer must apply separately, even if engaging an individual already vetted elsewhere. Vetting is also time sensitive – it is only valid at the time it is done. This means a fresh application may be required at another time by the same employer. There is no consensus or guideline on this issue; but An Garda recommends rechecking each 2 to 3 years, depending on the circumstances.

Many university courses (e.g. medicine, health, social work, education) require students to undertake placements that bring them into contact with vulnerable people. Some colleges ensure that only suitable candidates are allowed to undertake these programmes and use Garda Vetting to help decide. Applicants to courses that could be precluded following vetting from gaining work experience are advised to disclose this before proceeding with a college application.

Garda Vetting and the Arts

• Introduction
• Background to Garda Vetting
• So, what is Garda Vetting?
• Garda Vetting and the Individual
• Garda Vetting and the Arts
• About the Author
• Print-friendly version of the entire article

It is Arts Council policy (ii) that any organisation it supports, which provides services for children or young people, must have in place protection and welfare policies and procedures. In 2007, it provided revenue funding to over 150 arts organisations involved in this area of work (Arts + Education Directory, the Arts Council, 2007) through education and outreach services, workshops, artist’s commissions and residencies. It encouraged these groups to adapt the Council’s policy guidelines for their own staff and situations. In response to consultation with the sector the Arts Council is developing guidelines for arts practice with children and young people. A key to the Council’s ability to take these initiatives is the creation of a staff post (part-time) focused on protection and welfare.

To date, a number of arts organisations have registered with the Garda Vetting Unit and others are understood to be in discussion. The registered organisations include Create, The Ark, the National Association for Youth Drama (NAYD) and Poetry Ireland. Poetry Ireland uses vetting in the context of the Writers in Schools scheme, which it manages for the Arts Council, and is extending the service to other organisations. NAYD processes applications for affiliates in youth drama/theatre, but not for its general membership.

Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, is offering a more open service and is inviting arts organisations that engage artists to work in collaborative arts contexts with communities of interest and/or place to affiliate(iii). Create can also advise employers and individual artists in relation to the implications of vetting. It hopes to develop its policies and guidelines to a point where the arts sector adopts a standard approach and a sector-wide Code of Practice on Garda Vetting. This would allow the arts to make a significant contribution to the states protection of vulnerable persons.

(ii) Copies of the Arts Council’s publication: Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People in the Arts Sector are available at: www.artscouncil.ie/Publications/ChildGuidelinesEnglish.pdf

(iii) Details of Create’s Protection + Welfare Policies and the Affiliate Vetting Service that it provides are available online at www.create-ireland.ie or by phoning 01 4736600.

About the Author

• Introduction
• Background to Garda Vetting
• So, what is Garda Vetting?
• Garda Vetting and the Individual
• Garda Vetting and the Arts
• About the Author
• Print-friendly version of the entire article

Arthur Duignan is Assistant Director and Authorised Signatory of Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts. Arthur has been involved in many innovative arts and cultural initiatives since publishing the groundbreaking Bull, The Magazine in the 1980s. He later worked at Project Arts Centre and was active in Temple Bar Development Council. Arthur has lectured on the BA in Arts Management (IADT) and is a board member of Alternative Entertainments, Axis Arts + Community Resource Centre, and the Dublin Food Co-Op. He is also managing editor of Create’s Irish Fundraising Handbook.

Representing work

From its inception, the aim of Axis was ‘to raise professional awareness and improve visual arts practice by providing, in response to need, guidelines and models of practice linked with examples which demonstrate the parameters of good working methods to all who are involved, or are likely to be involved, in the field of work’. (‘Field of work’ referred here specifically to ‘public art’).
Its mission was ‘to broaden the constituency of visual arts and extend its influence in, and relevance to, the community, by:

• Providing a quality service and resource, which encourages good practice and professional relationships.

• Stimulating an enthusiasm for, and facilitating new partnerships and opportunities in, visual arts’.

Around this time, businesses were beginning to get a grip on the visual arts for their investment and publicity generation. Twenty years on, all major galleries have their key sponsors in the private sector and are even running high-profile competitions (e.g. the Turner, Becks Future) to make the most out of their connections. Such high profile art experiences in themselves provide us with benchmarks of quality. But are they reliable? How well do they relate to the work taking place outside of these heavily financed events? The web is the place to see what’s really going on: a virtual starting point, which can lead to real experiences and real partnerships, perhaps even on your doorstep.

Inclusive / exclusive

At a recent discussion event run by Axis, reviews editor of ArtReview, JJ Charlesworth, called for more information about more interesting stuff, rather than just more information. The web is key to this condition, creating, as nearly anybody will testify, an increased volume of work: emails fly, images wheel, information soars. For this reason, expertise and advice are crucial. A website will often be judged excellent because ‘they’ll weed through the rubbish and pick out the good stuff, so you don’t have to’. This implies that a) you haven’t time yourself to pick out the good stuff, and b) ‘they’ refers to respected and trusted individuals. How does this position on the web work with the otherwise loved and trusted social networking? The web has been seen to blur professional and social worlds. But hasn’t that always been the case? What everyone wants are direct emails containing exactly the interesting bit of information they’re looking for, sent by someone they trust; and spaces to network with people they like, which then lead to exciting and fruitful work opportunities.

Looking back at the original notes which set out a plan for Axis, ideas for an authoritative resource are still current, but with a shift of emphasis on where that authority comes from. Although initially determined to avoid predetermined value-judgements, somebody had to select, categorise and publish the material. Now the same people recognise it can’t be done alone and in fact works better if such a resource is inclusive, but not too inclusive.

The ‘authorities’ have a difficult path to tread. Nobody wants to be dictated to, especially not on the web and yet everybody wants reliable information. Experts, leaders and authorities have to be inclusive in the way they connect with different audiences, while letting those same audiences know that they are about to become part of a special, exclusive, world.

User-driven web resources

A site such as Axis can do much to deliver all the things it originally set out to do: both networking opportunities and reliable information. It presents selected information about artists and supports this within a critical context, which is created by the artists, critics, writers, and gallerists themselves. It also recognises the importance of being appropriately linked to the wider world. The context of any artwork is radically changed as anyone surfing the net might follow a path, for example: from artist to gallery where artist exhibited, to gallery café, to gigs at café, and so on. Users often want an end experience, something to go to (and this may have contributed to the proliferation of live events within the art scene) and a thirst not only for a live art happening, but also for talks, gallery openings and meetings. This need is something the Internet supports extremely well: both the lead-up to such events plus the post-analysis and documentation. All of this goes towards creating high levels of familiarity and confidence in the artist and the art.

To avoid becoming either a solely commercial concern, or an instrument of social policy, websites such as Axis must be user-driven: i.e. the user must be both trusting and active. But we cannot rely on any user: by ‘user’ we mean informed, dependable, people who can become advocates for those who want to be ‘in’ on the information.

To echo something Charles Landry, an advisor on creativity and culture within urban planning, talked about: ‘We need these special (cultural) places to reflect the ambitions and aspirations of a society.’ The web is often seen as an entity in itself, and yet we must remember that it is a reflection, and also a catalyst, of our cultural development, supporting the drive for new, and meaningful, experiences. The players remain the same: trained artists, critics and professionals. The web makes for a more fluid and flexible world, where ideas can be published, analyzed, copied or thrown out, at great speed and by a great amount of people.

The idea of community has both changed and remained the same: a bigger place, but still one of shared experience. A problem is identifying what, exactly, constitutes a shared experience and how best to present it. Where contemporary visual art is concerned, trust and association are crucial, and it is the artists who need to be investing in web experiences to make for bigger, and better, real experiences.

About the author

Reuben Knutson started working at Axis in 2001, creating an educational profile for the site. He became Audience Development Coordinator in 2007. He works part time for Axis and spends the rest of the time working as an artist in collaboration with a sound artist, to produce films for public commissions, live events and education projects.

Links:

http://www.axisweb.org/

reuben@axisweb.org

Personal Website:
http://www.artic.org.uk