Everyone agrees that the higher education sector in India is at a crossroad. It is dynamic and changing. The demands of the new millennia are forcing education to reconsider goals and alter strategies. The new impetus in education is mostly restricted to Science, technology and management sectors because the demographic advantage that we talk about comes to a naught without a major re-think and re-defining education. In the desire to change we seem to be also narrowing down our choice to a few emerging areas and ignoring others.
By and large the liberal arts education is not getting its due. More specifically when it comes to Art education it seems the whole system is in a big mess. Despite Universities opening their doors to Art and design education there seem to be no clear-headed thinking and hardly any debates about what it stands for. As a matter of fact the scene got further muddled in the last few years because bureaucratic solutions and stress on quantification has put art education at a disadvantage. The stake holders of art education across the country feel that their voices are not heard and major decisions are being taken without proper consultation or due diligence of involving practitioners/educators.
In the light of this situation the Foundation for Indian Art Education (FIAE) and the Kochi-Muzeris Biennale Foundation (KMB) have come together to jointly host a summit involving art educators, art administrators, artists and young curators.
The forum will be used as an opportunity to discuss a range of issues blighting art education, brain-storm, exchange views and synergize them as well as look for ideas that can impact the direction of art education in this country.
The South Zone conference is only a beginning of a series of zonal conferences leading up to a national summit in Delhi sometime in late 2016. This forum may also be used to create networking amongst the various stake holders in art education, a constituency whose numbers are sizeable but have remained under represented, for most part, in matters of policy making and dissemination. The idea is to have open discussion, air the views and have a say in matters we consider important.
To this effect the Zonal summit plans to table a survey of Art Colleges conducted in the five states of southern India and invite speakers who have worked in art education and contributed as practitioners as well as academics. The idea is also to include people representing the decision making apparatus of the Governments concerned.
Also See: Program | Report | Photo Gallery | Videos | Presentation by: R_Sivakumar , Raja_Mohanty , C.P. Krishnapriya , Indrapramit , Sadanand Menon ,Sashidharan Nair , Ravi Kashi , Raja Mohanty , Santhosh_Sakhinala , Ajaya Kumar , Report on the state of Art Schools
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