Research in Visual Arts Education - The National Society for ...

ART, DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL PARTICIPATION
But even if the contributions from researchers with a platform within the
university disciplines have been valuable, the need for research within the
field of art and design education itself, “from within”, is evident. By the
latter term, research in art and design education by the art and design educators
themselves is understood. A parallel term can be found in the Danish
research milieu around the Aarhus School of Architecture where a term has
been coined “arkitekturfaglig arkitekturforskning” (architectural research
by architects themselves). Practitioners of art and design education have
the possibility to develop knowledge on the base of their knowing “how”
instead of the discipline-based knowing “that” (Ryle, 1945). Research “from
within” by practitioners in art and design education as well as research “from
outside” in the same fields by academic disciplines together pose different
epistemological points of departure. They are complementary to each other
rather than they represent an “either – or situation”.
Doctoral programme for the making professions
When the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) opened their
doctoral programme for practitioners within other fields than architecture
in 1995, it indicated a turning point for research within art and design education.
Now artists, designers and educators got the possibility to qualify for
research within their own field of practise and knowledge. The leader for
the doctoral programme, professor Halina Dunin-Woyseth, has developed
an epistemological base for the programme, when introducing the concept
of a making discipline derived from the challenges for the making professions
(Dunin-Woyseth & Michl, 2001). Her idea of building an independent
research field to respond to the explicit demands for an informed field of
practice within art and design education has earned attention in Europe and
Asia. It was presented in Japan in 2003 (Dunin-Woyseth & Nielsen) and in
Brussels in 2005 (Dunin-Woyseth). As a young field of inquiry the making
disciplines need to collaborate with other fields of knowledge and expertise.
Transdisciplinarity has therefore been promoted as a broader strategy
for various making professions. In 2004 Dunin-Woyseth and Nielsen edited
a publication on transdisciplinarity with a specific focus on the challenges
and potentials that the new mode of knowledge production represents for
the making professions (Dunin-Woyseth & Nielsen, 2004).
According to various schools in the professional studies, the building of
a new field of academic knowledge to be derived from a field of practice
should be based on the three main components which together constitute
its knowledge base; history, theory and criticism (see for example various
master’s and doctoral studies in architecture and design in North America).
NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION 133