The pedagogical role of the arts. Artists and artist-teachers in Chile, enabling relationships and social transformation

Abstract

This article presents part of the results of the research Fondecyt 11180057, New links and challenges between the artistic and the pedagogical. Opening fields towards a re-conceptualization of art and the role of the artist/in today’s society. The project aimed to understand the intersections between the artistic and pedagogical practices of artists and artists-teachers in Chile and understand the pedagogical sense that is embedded in their artistic practices. For this, a qualitative methodology was developed through the Taller Artístico de Discusión method, with a total of 30 artists and artist-teachers in Chile. The analysis allowed identifying relevant results on the pedagogical sense of artistic practices and identified that they are types of practices that promote social transformation and new subjectivities, which shows artists and artists-teachers as agents of change. It was possible to appreciate that the pedagogical sense in the arts activates relational, critical and mediating elements, which relieves the socio-political and democratic role of the arts. The discussion of the results problematizes how artists and artists-teachers make the arts a way of making transcendent and a dialogue with the social world that revives the political sense of the arts and enables new subjectivities in those who experience it.