week3:

-uncover system-

LBD 370 

For the winter term of 2013/14 I came to Gothenburg as an exchange student for half a year. As an art education student from Austria I was really interested to see how university education works in the Scandinavian countries. During my exchange term here at “Högskolan för Design och Konsthantverk” it was my intention to experience this different structure of education and to investigate this education in a theoretical, but also in a very practical way. What are the main points in the education system, comparing the teachers of the art education program at HDK with my home university “Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien”. The chance to study as a real student here at HDK allowed me to reflect on the systems I was part of, what structure they have, what they are built on and how much influence and power they have over my own artistic way of thinking.

The aim of my artwork (and written paper) is to reflect on the two university structures I have been part of. The Scandinavian school and education system is famous to be different like other school and university systems in Europe, maybe even better. Because of that I want to find out, what this differences and where they are. What does they mean for me us a student, and which outcomes there are, if I get taught in a different form.

It is the process of uncovering a system, from its usually outcome to see what’s really behind, to expose and uncover visible and invisible connections, relations between the people themselves, and the institution as well. In a very simple form, I want to show how I see the division of power in the systems.

I am on the way to become a teacher in the future. The result should help me to define my own role as a teacher, choose which teacher I want to be. Decide which demands I make on my own profession.

Another important intention in my work is to show which form of education every single course, every teacher and all the connections take on. I divided the whole structure into just getting information, the transfer of knowledge or gaining competence/skills for the future work as a teacher.

During the last month at HDK I always connected and compared my experiences to the “normal” situation at my home university “Universität für Angewandte Kunst” in Vienna. Since I have taken these thoughts with me from the beginning of the term on, I decided to make the comparison of the two university systems the subject of my artistic work. 

With the method of mind maps (pencil on paper) I started to divide the university structure of “Universität für Angewandte Kunst” and “HDK”.

Since I know my home university system very well, I didn’t want to show just the connections, but also which quality a connection has for me as a student, I decided to use three colours to define the different form of relation and education: Information, Knowledge, Competence/skills. 
The final step was to transform the paper work of my home university into a textile work. Some of the words and connections are sewed, they form the stable structure of university, in which every student has to fit in. The other parts of the mind map are written on the fabric with pencil. On the back, they are just shine trough the fabric. Parts that every students creates on it`s own. In between there are a lot of connections, sewed but also formed by droopy threads. The stitched mind maps got a new dimension: It is like a cloth, which I was wearing, like a tent in that I lived or like a curtain, trough which one I saw university education during the last four years.

But the most interesting and powerful things, are what’s happen in between, they can’t be written or sewed down. They are the mean bar for the quality of an education.

The results of this process are to art pieces: a social map, written in black ink, on white paper; and a textile work, showing a social map in three different colours, partially sewed and written on a white big cloth.

During my entire work about the power of systems, I came by a lot of different structures which are in some context linked to a kind of power. In the end every system brought me a tiny step closer to my actual point of view on the power system behind university education. As well as a step close to my own demands, that I make on the profession as a teacher. The experiences and a some special people that I met here at HDK, showed me how important it is, to try to trigger out, the students abilities and skills, to show them, that they can have belief in their doing.

My aim was not to evaluate which system is the better one, Universität der angewandten Kust or Högskolan för Design och Konsthantverk, but to show that in every lecture or for every special field there are very particular needs to convey the real context. This means that not every time it is the best to go away from example ex-cathedra teaching, if it’s not really helpful.
Especially for artwork and art education it surely is helpful to decide as a teacher which form of education is needed to come as close as possible to the learning target. As I wrote in chapter 2, the main three steps of transferring knowledge to students, information, knowledge and competence/skills, should be combined and so the main effort for a teacher should be to be into the material, so that also if the lecture is just about giving information, he or she can pass on this information to his or her students in a way so that they can see what this information is worth. Hence knowledge and competence should always be connected to the educational process. 

The reflection about the university systems and their differences showed me how education can and could work. In Vienna as well as in Gothenburg there are pros and contras starting at the organisation of the whole study programme and ending at the personal tutoring between teacher and student. To create an education system that combines all the positive aspects of the proven school- and university systems is a dream which can’t be realised, if so many components play a role in the system, like it is the case nowadays.
Instead it is more important to reflect on the structure that we are part of and to be aware of the negative points and mistakes within a system. That way we can react on it in our own personal way, in a form which is the best for students and teachers.

For my own work as a teacher in the future, I take with me the importance of process-orientated teaching. I made the experience of how fundamental but as also how procreative it is if there is a basis of discussion between teacher and student. The personal talk about the own work, but also about contemporary art, events of the day, and other interests, because all parts of everyday life influence the artwork itself and should be a part of it, and a part of the discussion.