Matilde: What do you think are the core challenges of working and/or studying art education today?
Catherin: I find it challenging that art education is still often underestimated today and reduced to handicrafts or guided tour programs in many museums, or even schools.
Art education is too often treated as a kind of counter-offer to supposedly negative social developments: Digital media consumption, for example, is countered by contemplative handicrafts. There is nothing wrong with this, but the idea that pedagogy protects against social developments is already quite old, and I am firmly convinced that art education can do much more: It reflects on what art discusses and, in the best case, provides tools on how to react productively to social developments.
“[Creativity] takes time, space, maybe even boredom, and sometimes you “waste” a few seminar sessions that way or don’t go at all.”
Ina: Is there something you’ve been dreaming of doing for a long time? Why weren’t you able to do it yet?
Yes! For quite some time I would like to go abroad again to work (or even to study). At the same time, I have many exciting projects here in Basel that I don’t want to give up or to pause just yet. And I can’t really decide where I want to go right now.
Martha: You studied in Germany and Switzerland, at an University and Art academy. How did those experiences changed your approach to art?
The university showed me how important independence and autonomy are when it comes to (making) art. I can’t be creative and produce at the push of a button; that takes time, space, maybe even boredom, and sometimes you “waste” a few course sessions or don’t go at all. At the university in cologne, this was possible because there was no compulsory attendance and I was very free in my artistic process.
At the University of Applied Sciences in Basel however, the week was strictly timed and I was in block classes from morning till evening. What I lacked in free design was made up for by the wide range of artistic workshops and materials