Chew

Chew was developed by Artists and Higher Education lecturers Kate Squires (Westminster University) and Jenny Dunseath (Bath Spa University). The Chew interventions took place within the 'Distracted Pedagogy' section of the conference, convened by Moyra Derby (University for the Creative Arts) and Flora Parrott (Royal Holloway). The 'Distracted Pedagogy' session explored the creative potential of distraction through a series of participatory formats, interventions and short papers. In contrast to privileging certainty, coherence and singularity, distraction allows for scattered, messy, adaptive and associative thought processes. Informed by the sensibilities of practice generated pedagogies and in response to the neurodiversity of art school communities, the session considered the empathetic and responsive aspects of distraction and attentional dispersal, connecting to multi sensory and cognitively divergent aspects of not knowing. If we activate distraction, can we shift negative descriptions of boredom, indecision or lack of focus in learning environments into the positive attributes of a creative practitioner?

The conference was organised by Glasgow School of Art and Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Art. It explored the various approaches, methods and understandings of artists who teach in the field of higher education and beyond. It asked - how do artists teach in higher education, galleries and beyond, within the current climate? If not knowing is crucial to making art, is it also important in the teaching of it? As artist-teachers, what might we learn from each other, and how do artists’ pedagogies change and evolve?

"The not knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention" Donald Barthelme, Not-Knowing, 1997.