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Zart Extra Term 2 2010

Arts Education

“At the heart of good research is imagination...”
~ Professor Robert Saint, Dean of Science, University of Melbourne

Professor Ted Snell is director of the Cultural Precinct for the University of Western Australia. He was previously professor of contemporary art and dean of art at the John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, Perth. He has made a significant contribution to the life of Australian visual arts through his roles as chair of Artbank, chair of the Asialink Visual Arts Advisory Committee, chair of the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools and as a board member of the National Association for the Visual Arts. Professor Snell has also curated many exhibitions, written several books and catalogues. He is the Perth art reviewer for The Weekend Australian newspaper and has been a commentator on the arts for ABC radio and television. He is also a practising visual artist in his own right.

Below is part of Professor Snell’s address to the annual Hatched National Graduate Show at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. It also featured as an article in The Weekend Australian, May 09, 2009. Those involved in arts education will find Professor Snell a champion of our cause.

Shapes of the Future
Last year Harvard and Stanford universities called for a greater presence for the arts on campus and in undergraduate and graduate programs. Earlier reports at the universities of Chicago, Princeton and Columbia appealed for similar far-reaching changes and reasserted, in the words of the Chicago report, that “art is a central activity of the life of the mind”.

All these reports acknowledge the centrality of the arts in human endeavour. They also reinforce the importance of the visual and performing arts in fostering the ability of students to think imaginatively, to be creative risk-takers and, as the Stanford report adds, “to move gracefully through a world of rapid change”. According to those who drafted the Harvard report, it is necessary, despite the grave economic environment, to “make the arts an integral part of the cognitive life of the university, for along with the sciences and the humanities, the arts — as they are both experienced and practised —are ‘irreplaceable instruments of knowledge’ that allow innovation and imagination to thrive on our campus, to educate and empower creative minds across all disciplines and to help shape the 21st century.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb and indisputably a man who shaped the last century, touched on this subject when he commented that: “Scientists and artists have a special gift for us; both groups live always at the edge of mystery and the boundary of the unknown.” But perhaps it’s the great skill of the artists to give form to their musings in this mysterious penumbra of intellectual engagement and communicate what might be in a world obsessed with what is. If our future depends on innovation, imagination and the ability to work across disciplines, then the role of the arts will indeed be central to our educational mission.

When 70 per cent of the jobs that will exist in 20 years don’t exist today, and when it is predicted that an individual typically will have five careers and at least 15 jobs, the arts are an essential foundation. They encourage agility, self-motivation and visual acuity. These are the characteristics that assist in problem-solving and enable quick responses to changing conditions with a range of new and traditional skills. It is how the 21st century will be shaped.

Permission for this part of the article to be reproduced was granted by Professor Ted Snell, September 03, 2009

 

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