For this Visual Ethics Network online session, we will be joined by the artist Dr Kimberley Foster, who will introduce her practice research and discuss the ethical implications of creating ‘Pedagogical Art Objects’ specifically aimed at disrupting conventional ways of knowing within the art museum.
This talk will explore how the tangible aspects of these materials—such as their matter, form, and weight—can interrupt habitual perceptions and challenge established institutional knowledge hierarchies. This process enables participants to "learn from the museum beyond what it sets out to teach us" (Rogoff, 2008, p.2), encouraging exploration beyond what we think we should know and what we might physically encounter. In this context, the ethics of a careful art pedagogy will be discussed, while it will be questioned how this sits alongside existing institutional ethics. How do these pedagogical materials create a space for autobiographical and subjective unpredictability within the already complex conventions of the art museum?
The presentation will be followed by a discussion between the speaker and Dr Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani, art historian and theorist, while then there will be a Q & A.
The last part of this session will be a participatory workshop, in which we will engage with written and visual prompts in order to further explore some pertinent ethical questions and how we can question moving away from predetermined processes, embrace unruly material, and rupture established interpretative structures.
This event is organised by the Visual Ethics Network (CModS Research Strand) and funded by the Centre for Modern Studies, University of York.
Sign up / The event is free, but booking is required. Please sign up here.
Bio / Dr Kimberley Foster is an artist and academic whose practice research focuses on embodied approaches to learning and interpretation in art museums. She explores how a distinct material approach, connected to specifically designed Pedagogical Art Objects, can engage diverse forms of knowledge and enhance the museum materialised experience. Kimberley questions the potential of a prosthetic art pedagogy that drives the learner beyond the conventions of dialectic thinking towards a disequilibrium. Kimberley lectures at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, focusing on approaches to Practice Research. She is one half of the established collaborative partnership sorhed (www.sorhed.com), currently a supervisor at Goldsmiths, and a Cambridge Visual Culture visiting research fellow.
Relevant Literature /
- Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange Encounters Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. Routledge.
- Ahmed, S. (2010). "Happy Objects", in Melissa Gregg, Gregory J. Seigworth (eds), The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Atkinson, D. (2018). Art, Disobedience, and Ethics: The Adventure of Pedagogy. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Atkinson, D. (2022). Pedagogies of Taking Care: Art, Pedagogy and the Gift of Otherness. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
- Garoian, C. (2013) The Prosthetic Pedagogy of Art : Embodied Research and Practice. State University of New York Press.
- hooks, b. (2010). Teaching Critical Thinking – Practical Wisdom. Routledge.
- Manning, E. (2016). The Minor Gesture. Durham: Duke University Press.