International Art Symposia as a Space of Knowledge Creation and Creative Engagement

Art symposia that bring artists together to collaborate with each other and locals are one way of initiating community art education (CAE). In this chapter we discuss socially-engaged art symposia that respond to ongoing environmental crises, eco-anxiety, the increased need for nature-connectedness and recent philosophical paradigm shifts, such as new materialism and post-humanism. Environmental crises have challenged art and education and underscored the requirement to transcend anthropocentrism: to have empathy and respect towards non-human nature. Ecological crises call for activist art and art-science collaborations to bring critical and creative thinking together and to produce strategies that deepen humans’ relationships with non-human nature. We ask, how can community artists and art educators create transformative experiences in communities at international art symposia?

Our research question is, “How do art symposia complement educational encounters?” We aim to identify factors that support learning and cross-disciplinary, cross-artistic, and cross-cultural confluence in art symposia. At the end, we give recommendations for CAE through international art symposia.

We present three case studies in which we follow the approach of art-based action research (ABAR) as a way to develop art symposia as CAE: two art projects from year 2019 conducted in the International Socially Engaged Art Symposium (ISEAS), held annually in Raseborg, Southern Finland; and an installation made in 2017 in Art Äkäslompolo, an art event in Finnish Lapland, which participates in political discussion on land use and conflict on a plan for an iron ore mining. Both events include opportunities for community participation, such as workshops and joint artistic productions together with local schools, village associations, and similar organizations. Both of the authors have had initiators’ roles in these events in addition to tasks as curators and artist-researchers. ISEAS is curated and coordinated by Juhola, who invites international and national artists to work collaboratively with local communities in Raseborg. Art Äkäslompolo is curated and coordinated by Huhmarniemi with artist Satu Kalliokuusi. The collaboration of the authors began when Juhola invited Huhmarniemi to ISEAS 2019 (www.iseasfinland.com).