Art&Education (Newsletter)

“Established in New York in January 2006 as a joint venture between e-flux and Artforum, Art & Education reaches an international network of more than 80,000 visual-art professionals and academics on a daily basis through its website and e-mail list. Its news digest—Art & Education announcements—distributes information about some of the world’s most important contemporary art exhibitions, publications, and symposia taking place within educational contexts, as well as academic employment positions available in the visual arts.

Our mailing list is assembled in cooperation with several hundred leading international journals, art schools, educational programs, and universities. Our focused and selective approach to the information we choose to distribute has been rewarded by an exceptionally high degree of attention and responsiveness from our readers.”

There are probably about a million sources you can go to for information on art education (Kunstvermittlung) publications, but this one I found to be particularly helpful. Be forewarned, if you subscribe you will get A LOT of e-mails, but most of them are pretty interesting: often there is information about masters and doctorate programs in Europe, America, Asia and occasionally in Africa, which, even if you are not planing on a second masters are extremely interesting to see!

For example, through Art&Education I found out about the System D Academy, an experimental masters program in the Netherlands based on trial and error development of organisational systems. AKA – “How to structure a society based on artistic strategy.” HOW COOL IS THAT?

Or, another personal favorite: the ON Journal, an online audio journal “for experimental art and visual culture,” where you can submit papers (to read and record for the website) or just listen to people read their papers (more interesting than it sounds) on cultural, political and artistic topics.

The Art&Education newsletter also sends information about online and print peer-reviewed journals (where you can submit papers), travel stipends, international workshops, artist residencies, exhibitions, artist talks, …oh, and JOB OFFERS – although mostly at the university level, so artistic and educational experience are required. But hey, who says you can’t dream…?

The DRAWBACKS

It’s ALL IN ENGLISH and since it’s an American-initiated project, it is somewhat anglo-saxon oriented (a lot of the exhibitions mentioned are, as can be expected, in the USA/England). And, it’s a lot to sort through. Sometimes I just delete everything they send because I don’t feel like even starting to look at it.

The UPSIDE

Nonetheless, there is a LOT of international stuff to check out (Europe, Asia…), the quality of most of the information is high and the fact that you just might find out about something you never would have discovered otherwise makes it pretty enticing. And since a lot of the sources/publications/other stuff is online, it doesn’t matter where it’s based, you can access and/or participate in it. Finally, and perhaps most of all, it’s a good way to receive inputs, for more or less no effort; you might just see an  exhibition that fits to what you’re teaching, a program you think is worth checking out, or a call for papers in something you specialize in…or your masters thesis.