Decolonizing Artistic Education is a curriculum and staff development project that was jointly initiated by the Nagenda International Academy of Art & Design (NIAAD) in Namulanda, Uganda and the Institute for Art Education at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2014, aiming to develop concrete strategies to decolonize the academy’s art education curricula and without compromising its graduates’ job market compatibility.
Decolonizing Artistic Education is a curriculum and staff development project that was jointly initiated by the Nagenda International Academy of Art & Design (NIAAD) in Namulanda, Uganda and the Institute for Art Education at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2014.
Researchers based at NIAAD are working to develop concrete strategies to decolonize the academy’s art education curricula but without compromising its graduates’ job market compatibility. This entails a full-scale re-evaluation of the social, economic, cultural and political frameworks within which NIAAD produces and disseminates knowledges. The research is largely being developed using participatory action research methodologies.
For their part, the IAE recognises that the decolonisation of arts education is as urgent in Switzerland as it is in Uganda. In order to ensure the relevance and the success of its future programmes and activities, the IAE considers it vital to devote increased energies to developing strategies to successfully avoid privileging Western or Eurocentric ways of knowing. The institute deems it necessary, now more than ever, to gain practical knowledge about what is concretely required for equitable, reciprocal dialogues on artistic education to take place within the context of unequal power relations. The IAE believes that the best possibility for achieving these aims is to partner with NIAAD on this research project.
The anticipated outcomes of our joint research are chiefly contributions to the revision and development of art education curricula and staff development programmes at both NIAAD and the ZhdK. At the IAE, the collaboration with NIAAD is therefore strongly connected with Art.School.Differences - a research and university development project that seeks to address the reproduction of inequality in art and design schools in Switzerland.
In addition, the IAE and NIAAD intend to publish their findings regarding strategies and approaches for collaborative development of critical knowledges in art education within the context of unequal relations of power.