PEER EDUCATION
How to set up an exhibition? Well, better ask that to one of the curators of the museum. Leontien Coelewij has been curator at the Stedelijk for over 7 years already and is specialized in today’s art. Maybe that is why she got invited by the ‘Blikopeners’ (view openers) to tell something about her work. By who? The Blikopeners are a group of youngsters from Amsterdam that are interested in arts and who are organizing all sorts of events and are an advisory board for the Stedelijk Museum. One of the aims of their project is to get other kids interested in arts through education, or as they named it themselves: peer education.
Which made me think. What can these kids teach other kids and is this better than non-peer education can do? Regarding the know how I guess the answer should be no. The same goes probably for the method of storytelling we are so often talking about. But there is one thing that they can actually do best as it nothing they need to do, but already have: levelling with the paradigm of their students. Without any effort they are thinking in the same world as their public, with the same freedom, the same boundaries, the same values and so on. This off course can have a high stimulative power and more important, makes it very easy to do things together. And isn’t it doing things through which we learn the most?
According to Navi Radjou maybe the traditional teacher will then have to change its role in the education system and become a fascilitator of education. Maybe this is a good example of what a fascilitating manager would be supplying. In this case a container (meeting point, communication platform) and arts, artists and an arts industry (resources).
GLOBALIZING MODERN ART SCENE
Then the interview itself. There was one thing that triggered my thought. On a question about travelling around the world and the most important places for modern art, Leontien Coelewij stated that besides the traditional cities like New York, London and Paris more and more the cities in emerging regions are calling for the attention of the modern art lovers, as do their artists. Were we to go to the ‘TropenMuseum’ before if we wanted to see and know something about the culture of Africa, now the StedelijkMuseum might be just as good a place.
Emerging regions are becoming more and more modern. Not only in their adoption of technology, but apparently as well in the use of cultural expression. I don’t know if it is right or wrong, actually I don’t think there is a truthful normative answer to that question, but it does show that the possibilities to understand each other are becoming more present. Art is a reflection on society that wants you to change your perspective for a minute or two, just to think things over. That means that the message in African art is still reflecting the African culture, but with the use of images that are familiar to others, maybe the others will be much better capable of understanding the African culture.
I think that the emergence of modern art in emerging regions is great. It shows that economic development and cultural/social development are not yet totally distached from each other and that globalization is not a mere economic trend. It is also about trading cultural values and that can only lead to a great form of interdependency and equality.
