Drawing out: Encounter, resistance and collaboration

Abstract

Abstract This collaborative paper is written against the backdrop of a current crisis in art education and provision in UK secondary schools. Education policy and the introduction of the European Baccalaureate (EBacc) has led to an increasing decline in the hours of arts teaching and number of arts teachers in England's secondary schools (Cultural Learning Alliance 2018). The results of this educational turn are well documented and the effects are being felt now in higher education, in wider culture and in the outcomes for young people in their creative capabilities, global outlook and wellbeing. Drawing pedagogy is considered with reference to this wider context and through the lens of Gert Biesta's philosophy of education that brings children and young people into dialogue with the world. It juxtaposes Tim Ingold and John Dewey in a discussion of a collaborative drawing project, Ailleurs (Elsewhere), an exchange between Plymouth College of Art (PCA) and Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Montpellier Contemporain (MoCo ESBA) in 2017. The intention is to bring a pedagogy of collaboration, resistance and encounters to bear, to argue for drawing as a singular means of working within this set of tensions. The text concludes that as research or enquiry-led teaching is at the root of an increasing amount of University teaching, finding a route into this from results-led education is a clear challenge to higher education and it sets out a collaborative, peer-to-peer learning strategy as an approach to drawing pedagogy.