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195 Museum of Contemporary
Art (2009)
196 Haseman & Jaaniste
(2008:5)
Lecture at the 2010 IDEAS
Festival. Photograph by
Richard McLaren, courtesy of
the IDEAS Festival.
#7
CONTEXTS
Growing future Innovators: a scoping study
Contemporary art institutions can
connect schools to innovation by
overtly framing arts and cultural
activity within the broader context
of innovation and philosophies
of change…
by comparing, contrasting and fusing
arts-based innovation with other
disciplines and communities that
contribute to the flow of innovation.
Given the highly interdisciplinary nature
of contemporary arts, innovation is often
at work in the collaborative practices and
programs. The work of Lousia Bufardeci
featured at the Museum of Contemporary
Art was innovative in its use of statistical
data and numerical information recycled
from sources like the CIA Fact Book, the
national census, the World Bank, UNESCO
and opinion polls. 195 Emma Nicolson explains
that for the MCA’s in-service sessions for
teachers they recruited an innovator in the
field of mathematics to team-teach these
workshops, and which drew on Bufardeci’s
vivid and provocative colour charts, maps
and architectural diagrams. This instance of
connecting arts-based innovation with that
of other disciplines amplifies the strategy of
the IDEAS Festival, which has focused on
“the exchange of ideas across sector, across
industry, across generations and across
the room.”
While an institution’s central mission is
to bring contemporary art and culture
to the public, it can also help develop
the terminology and understanding of
innovation as it relates to the arts and
beyond. As Haseman and Jaaniste caution,
“If the arts are to be valued as an integral
part of Australia’s national innovation
system” then one of the things we must do
is “develop an understanding of arts-based
knowledge that connects it to innovation.” 196
Finding the language, the tools and the
time to articulate stronger links between
contemporary arts institutions and
established innovation discourses is likely
to result in better understandings of artsled
learning initiatives and their impact.
As Jenny Simpson from AWESOME Arts
acknowledges, “the hardest things to capture