Art-based Adult Education: A Deeper Dive.
From Chapter 2 of the Exegesis.

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From storytelling, poetry, music, dancing and painting to patchwork and woodcarving, art and craft making have a long tradition as tools of learning and action in adult and community education (Clover et al., 2013; Grummell and Finnegan, 2020b). In this practice people use collective artistic processes, tools and materials, interwoven with problem-posing Adult Education to explore social, cultural or environmental issues. This can involve collaboration between artists, adult and community educators and other social movement actors, or may occur without the assistant of an artist (Clover et al., 2013; Butterwick and Roy, 2016; Grummell and Finnegan, 2020b) The field draws on activist art which is concerned with political (Lippard, 1984; Mullin, 2003) and social practice art (SPA) which is similarly concerned with political issues and uses collaborate forms of artmaking to explore these. SPA conversely draws on Adult Education practice and critical feminist pedagogies, for example, the work of Freire, hooks, Boal, and Giroux.   

Benefits

There are multiple characteristics of art and craft making which lend it well to the purposes of transformative emancipatory forms of Adult Education. It is an inclusive way of engaging people in transformative learning, and it stimulates critical inquiry, expression, imagination, and fosters the development of relationships, collaboration and making skill. Art is experiential, meaning that it is a type of activity that offers people a different quality of experience within our continuous everyday life experience (Dewey, 1934; Farinacci and Prestianni, 2022). It engages our imagination and enables our freedom of expression. Art making is an embodied and kinaesthetic experience, like craft making, building, tinkering, gardening, science experiments and engaging in outdoor education.

It is worth highlighting here that the concepts of ‘embodied’ and ‘experiential’ are not one and the same. In an embodied experience we are using all parts of ourselves, head, heart and hands all moving together, to imagine, to express and make or do something. These characteristics allow people to explore and share ideas in ways that are less reliant on text and language. This creates a more inclusive inquiry space for people in groups who may come to a learning space with multiple forms of intelligence and different languages and cultures. It supports less verbal communication within group processes which can support the participation of those who are using a different language or who are less, or non-verbal. This could be due to being neurodivergent, or perhaps an illness, such as recovering from a stroke, those who are introverted, or who simply lack confidence in expressing themselves through speech.

Artistic activities help us to tap into our emotions, our affective aspects. While art based-Adult Education and SPA are not art therapy, using art in emancipatory contexts helps us to connect with our emotions and process and express difficult feelings on our lived experience in a more epochal way. As Eisner reminds us (2008), ‘our rational, emotional and sensory parts are not separate, and we work best when these parts of us are integrated’ (p. 344).

The arts also stimulate our imagination, our social imaginary which is fundamental to being able to explore social-ecological issues and imagine alternative social, political and economic ways of living (Greene, 1995; Mills, 2000; Judson and Egan, 2012). The arts also offer a fun way of engaging with and sharing publicly our experiences of difficult and often painful issues and our ideas and feelings about the world. This does not diminish its serious purpose or designate art as a sort of recreational activity within more serious activism work. 

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The process and outcomes of such collective arts projects also importantly create a political aesthetic which challenges the normative hegemonic aesthetic, that which is typical to see in public domains and spheres. As Gablik (2004) points out the world is becoming increasingly culturally homogenised (Gablik, 2004). Creative projects which are imbued with local counter knowledges and countercultures have the capacity to dismantle ‘the codes and categories of how the world is seen, to imagine the world not as it is but as it might be’ (Miles, 2012, p.10). (in clover). It models, in a very public and visually impactful way, the possibilities of collaboration and other visions for living.

In an Adult Education context, we are naming the world and remaking the world (Freire, 1970) in a concrete way. This is the context in which art is utilised within Adult Education and in this research; to support people to reveal the issues they see in their communities and imagine and try to affect alternative ways of living which could address those issues through collective action. It is important to remember that Freirean praxis involves collective reflection on lived experience, dialogue and action. It is participants lived experience that is being reflected on and the focus of the experiential learning workshop, the art is in this instance a tool of praxis.

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While a broad range of art and craft practices are utilised in Adult Education, some distinctive creative learning-research methodologies rooted in problem-posing education (Freire, 1972), have been developed (Taylor, 1993; Grummell and Finnegan, 2020b; Hegarty, 2020; Meaney, 2020). For example, Augusto Boal developed ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ in the 1970’s to explore and advance political change towards social justice through drama (Boal, 2002, 2008; Leavy, 2015; Meaney, 2020). Boal’ (2002) publication, ‘Games for Actors and Non-actors’, sets out a collection of activities and approaches for doing just that. In another creative approach, ‘Photovoice’, participants use photography to capture a visual representation of issues they see in their community as the starting point for dialogue and actions on those issues (Wang and Burris, 1997; Mitchell, 2012; Leavy, 2015; Hegarty, 2020). Wang & Burris (1997), generally associated with the development of this approach, used photovoice to undertake research with rural women in China on the issue of community health (Wang and Burris, 1997; Suffla, Seedat and Bawa, 2015; Hegarty, 2020). These creative Adult Education practices may also be viewed as social practice art.

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Art and culture as tools of oppression

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Conversely, feminist analyses of the arts and cultural industries, have also highlighted the role of the arts in perpetuating cultures of inequality through elitist and sexist notions around who can make, view, and appreciate art. Historically women were absent in the arts and gallery spaces, both in voice and body, as were those of the lower classes () while the individual, usually male, artist was held up as the genius ( cite).

John Dewey (1958) highlighted that art is for everyone, as the community arts mantra goes, and part of everyday life (Benson and Arts Community Education, 1989). Therefore, democratising participation in, and engagement with, the arts is of itself a form of political action oriented to democracy (Dewey, 1934; Benson and Arts Community Education, 1989; Mattern, 1999; Fitzgerald, 2004). This use of culture mirrors questions regarding who gets to produce knowledge and for who’s benefit. Challenging the way we make art, together for the purpose of community, or as an individualistic model orientated to the capitalist market. Not a vilification of professional artists earning a living but an analysis of the overarching political and economic systems shaping how art is made and for whose benefit.

A contemporary practitioner whose Adult Education practice influences my own work is Darlene Clover. Darlene’s feminist works transcends disciplinary fields and recognises and utilises art, craft, ecology, and outdoor education approaches as tools of emancipatory learning and action in a social-ecological context. A couple of notable examples include ‘the museum hack’ (Clover, 2020) and the quilt project in ‘Myths and Mirrors’ (Clover, 2007) 

The museum hack looks at the role of art in reflecting and perpetuating gender inequality and uses problem-posing questions in a gallery context to explore gender issues with learners. Questions such as ‘how many women are highlighted’ revealed that women artists work were shown to a much lesser extent in galleries than male artists were. It also stimulated dialogue on why women were only present in the gallery in nude or virginal representations in the artworks themselves, as the Gorilla Girls collective famously highlighted in their art activism work  

The Adult Education field also recognises that traditional crafts are an artistic practice, rejecting the separation between art and craft and which places craft, as utilitarian practice, below art (Cumming and Kaplan, 1991; Clover et al., 2013; Krugh, 2014; Danahay, 2015). Craft practices are usually embedded in indigenous communities and infused with local culture, expression and knowledge of place and contribute to local economies. Clover utilises craft within her Adult Education practice, for example by using quilting, a traditional women’s art. This project aimed to connect with women and build on the thriving quilting guilds that exist throughout the North of Canada. The embeddedness of craft in community has the capacity to engage a broader audience perhaps than art alone can. Clover remarks,

They all just loved the art of quilting so that . . . proved to be very interesting because I wasn’t attracting the activists. Instead, I was attracting real women who were really interested in talking about their dreams about their community for the future [which made it a] very rich process.

(2007, p. 516)

Craft also conjures the practice of making, and making something, as Charny (2011) affirms, is fundamental to meaningful human experience (Charny, 2011). It is also a way of connecting people to local issues, systemic issues and collective action. For example, the spinning wheel as a mode of production is linked to social movements. Such a in the case of Indias struggle for independence in which Indians boycotted British wool and produced their own wool for their own local needs and local economy.

Amanda Slevin, an environmental sociologist (2021) explored Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ as a resource for understanding processes of, and barriers to, multi-level changes. This was informed by the ‘Creating our Vision for a Greener Future’ project. Recognising the need to transition away from socio-ecologically harmful consumption and production patterns towards a more sustainable and just future, they explored adult learning through Freirean pedagogy as a tool for transitioning. Bringing drama, climate justice and transformative education together they co-created a drama, Anna’s Journey’ to communicate socio-ecological issues and prompt critical thinking and action among those who engaged with the project (Slevin, et al, 2021).

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New Genre Public Art (NGPA)

Sandlin (2011, 2020) identifies Suzanne Lacy’s New Genre Public Art as one which shapes public pedagogy theory, practice, and inquiry, focused on learning enacted in counter-institutional spaces in the context of artistic cultural representation. Suzanne Lacy describes NGPA as:

Visual art that uses both traditional and nontraditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives, is based on engagement … much of what has been called public art might better be defined as private indulgence. Inherently public art is social intervention.

(Lacy, 1996, p. 1)

NGPA is a social practice artform described as collaborative, participatory, dialogic, activist art made with the public outside of the usual institutional settings of museums, galleries, and studios (Lacy, 1995; Kwon, 2002). It is intended to make art accessible to a diverse public who can take ownership of art and public space and how they wish to culturally represent themselves (Lacy, 1995). This confronts the power position of official public art, which, like official knowledge, promotes the culture of those in power. By marking public spaces with permanent artworks or monuments that symbolically represents the dominant culture, the public are educated on what official culture is (Lacy, 1995; Kwon, 2004). A commissioned public artwork for Ennistymon, Co. Clare, called ’The Púca’ (Harte, 2022) which became a source of community contention illustrates this power relations issue. People felt they had not been consulted on the artwork by the local Authority, Clare, Co. Council, who commissioned the piece, and also felt the sculpture did not represent the culture of the town (McGarry, 2021; Deegan, 2022; Halloran, 2022). The sculpture was not in the end placed in the town, and an uncredited quote in TheJournal.ie (2022) stated, ’If something is divisive in a community, then it shouldn’t happen. We need to be careful about the statutes that we erect.’(Deegan, 2022)

In contrast, community participatory projects can potentially create a visible local cultural representation which speaks to their lived experience. This challenges the hegemonic occupation of public places and spaces with statues that people do not relate to, and which are chosen by people in power (Kwon, 2004; Robbins and Lacy, 2013; Santone, 2021). Such interventionist art projects which support people to express their voice and culture and can activate consciousness raising and therefore can be ‘a powerful force toward social and political change’ (Kwon, 2004, p.107). Gablik, whose work is situated within this genre, asserts that the social relatedness of participatory art, and its connective aesthetic when undertaking in relationship with ecology engenders ecological healing (Gablik, 1992b, 1992a, 1999). Such participatory approaches also confront the capitalist individual art market.

An irony of social practice art projects is that they may not actually look like typical forms of art. For example, The project Beneath Land and Water: A Project for Elkhorn City, (figure below) undertaken by Suzanne Lacy et al (2000) included a ‘native plant park with sculptural benches, a walking trail to unite disparate aspects of the town into a whole, a centerpiece mural, a website, and publication of a new town tourism brochure’.

 

Beneath Land and Water: A Project for Elkhorn City. Suzanne Lacy et al (2000-2006).

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It was later installed as documentation in an exhibition titled Groundworks, curated by Grant Kester for Carnegie Mellon University (Lacy, 2019). Though not framed as education, pedagogical outcomes can occur from such projects in several ways. For example, firstly, within the community group through participants’ dialogic collaboration with each other, and with artists and other stakeholders. Secondly, learning is offered to the public through the presentation of the project outcomes online, in hardcopy publications and in gallery contexts. Such projects therefore are culturally and pedagogically operating on multiple public fronts.

Art interventions, whether performance or workshop based, can be undertaken with prearranged public groups in durational projects or as temporary pop-up events. Interventions are designed to attract people who are ‘confronted by an increasingly privatized and controlled visual world’ (Sholette & Thompson, 2004, p. 98) where the tastes of those in power tend to dominate the visual landscape of villages, towns and cities. Their aim is to reclaim publicness, public spaces and cultural representation using a tactical interruption of the typical normative culture visible in public spaces. These intervention actions appear spontaneous and offer an opportunity for the public to engage in that moment. One tactic used in such interventions is to at first appear to belong to a given situation and then reveal a contrasting or conflicting discourse (Thompson et al., 2004; Richardson, 2010; Walter and Earl, 2017).

Nato Thompson and Greg Sholette highlight that ‘humour, sleight of hand and high design are used to interrupt this confrontation and bring socially imperative issues to the very feet of their audiences (2004, p. 98). This was the approach I was taking with the [EM]-Powergeneration workshop with the spinning wheel. A spinning wheel is not so unusual to see in public space in Ireland, being part of our indigenous textile making history. However, on closer approach and engagement with the wheel what is expected has been subverted by the kinetic energy and radical pedagogy workshop situation. This type of art intervention and those of the Hedge space intervention workshops are all a form of performance art. Risks associated with the pop-up intervention is whether people will engage with it, and if they do, to what extent can you know what effect the intervention has had on people? As an Adult Education practice, it is critical to build in a mechanism for feedback to ensure that full praxis cycles can be undertaken.

Thompson (2004) contends that, in a departure point from political art of the 90s, there is now a refusal to use representation as a tactic, particularly the use of images depicting violence and exploitation to move people to political action. Thompson explains:

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That these things [Interventions] “present” as opposed to “represent” is not an accident. When the words “political art” are spoken, most people imagine a unilateral institutional critique, depressing refugee photographs, or possibly graphic   statements somehow attacking the viewer for ignorant complicity. The lack of these methods does not imply that such issues are less important now, but rather that the methods for communicating these issues have changed. The symbolically charged image, as a tactic, no longer feels adequate as a communicative device.

 

                                                                                                                                                                 (2004, p. 98)

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Such visual representations also run the risk of slipping into a practice of propaganda and sloganizing, which Freire (1971) cautions against as it becomes an anti-dialogic soap box rather than a critical conversation with others. However, hope is central to critical and feminist practice and therefore the creation of a positive aesthetic or alternative aesthetic is important. The idea of aesthetic of hope in contrast to some of the heavy-handed tactics of earlier activist art is a point also made by Kate Fletcher. In ‘Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys’, she asserts that in designing local and light for sustainability and resilience, the positive aesthetic is an essential tool to encourage engagement with sustainability and in considering how and why we make things in contemporary times (Fletcher, 2008; Thompson et al., 2004; Walter & Earl, 2017).

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Practice Challenges and Criticisms

Greene (1995), an advocate for art in curriculum, highlights that the arts are often dismissed as a frivolous activity which cannot affect learning or social change. However, these emancipatory fields which encompass art-based Adult Education and social practice art have over recent decades produced a significant body of practice-based research and scholarship that demonstrate its value. Nonetheless, practitioners do recognise the limits and challenges of their practice and criticisms and cautionary calls for continuous reflexive reflection on practice exist (Brookfield, 2005; James and Brookfield, 2014). Brookfield (2005) highlights that no single project will fundamentally solve all the world’s problems. Projects too are usually underfunded and time limited, with participants’ resources being meagre, and group work is challenging with conflict commonplace. However, these projects do give people space to explore, express, vision, propose and try out new ways of living together in the world through a critical lens.

Critics argue that these community collaborative art practices do not always produce quality art. However, the process of collaboration and social relations and critical inquiry, learning and knowledge these projects produce are considered more important that a sophisticated art outcome (Clover, 2000; Lawrence, 2005). This does not mean that both an affective artistic praxis process and an artistic outcome are not both possible. Where resources allow, a strong artistic project outcome which can be distributed to others as an aesthetic public pedagogy is sought and does occur. One example being Sarah Meaney’s (2020) theatre and poetry-based pedagogy-research in collaboration with people in custody.

 

Community and participatory art projects have been criticised for instrumentalising art as social care, with concern that artists, citizens and community groups are delegated responsibility for the State’s social care work. This can create the conditions for artwashing deeper social problems. Projects can give the impression of social inclusion and community empowerment, and a cosmetic facelift to a neighbourhood, without challenging or changing any of the larger structural problems which generate poverty (Fitzgerald, 2004; Mulloy, 2009). John Mulloy in ‘Wild Country: Art, Community and The Rural’ warns of substituting art for political action whereby the existing status quo remains unchanged.

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Public Pedagogy: Popular Culture and Everyday Life

In addition to participatory forms of pedagogy and art, public pedagogy can occur through the distribution of discourses and ideas via ‘popular culture and everyday life’. Narratives, both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic, can permeate the public domain via television and film, print media such as, books, magazines, zines, and posters, paintings, and through music in song lyrics, and so on. Feminist bell hooks (2009) argues that popular culture can be used to create a false consciousness. Theorist Henry Giroux contends that this is achieved by subjecting the public arena to a constant aesthetic narrative attack by neoliberal propaganda, selling consumerism as social reality and values that serve elitist interests.

Through advertising, film, social media and news media, we are educated on how to look, feel, think, and act and what to buy (hooks, 1994; Giroux, 1998, 2004; Mills, 2002; Hooks, 2009). It is an irony felt by many artists that, as interventionist Nato Thompson asserts, ‘in the commodification of culture by capitalism, that “culture” became the primary industry of global capitalism’ (Thompson, et al 2004, p.99). However, as outline earlier, counter-hegemonic discourses can also be advanced through these contested sites, by different actors in civil society interrupting and challenging the dominant discourse, in the war of position struggle (Gramsci, 1971; Giroux, 2003; Mayo, 2005, 2014; Sandlin, Schultz and Burdick, 2010; Manojan, 2019; Cox, 2024b)

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Barbara Kruger’s artwork, I shop, therefore I am (Fig.1.) is a commentary on how the act of consumption in the capitalist era has become central to our sense of meaning. This iconic image demonstrates how artworks can make something visible and challenge the normative discourses which aggressively dominate the public landscape and provoke thought. ​​​

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Books similarly have public pedagogy power. The publication of Silent Spring, by conservationist Rachel Carson, which exposed the toxic effect of TNT on songbirds (Patricia Hynes, 1989; Kroll, 2001; Paull, 2013) played an important role in the development of the environmental movement.  

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