Camina Art and Creative Practice in Critical Education Activity

An event exploring what critical education is, reflecting on the role of art and creative methods in encouraging dialogue on societal issues and in bringing people together to create social change.

CAMINA (Critical and Alternative Methods and Ideas Network for Action) is an initiative started by a small group of people with experience of critical education who feel that more needs to be done to support and connect practice and 'practitioners'. Our first (ongoing) action as CAMINA has been to set up a participatory action research (PAR) project - Learning as we go - looking at critical education activity in Scotland, and how it can be supported.

Critical Education is a “school” of educational thought and practice in which the deeply (socio)political nature and potential of education (both formal and non-formal), is not only recognised, but seen as key in bringing about social change from the ground up and challenging power structures locally and globally. In other words, critical education is fundamentally understood (by CAMINA) as striving towards transformation: challenging existing social structures and helping to build greater equality, social justice, environmental sustainability and collective capacity.

Among other factors, critical education holds questioning and dialogue as central to learning, and highlights problem-posing as the key role of the educator - rather than to give or “preach” answers. Moreover, we see creative and arts-based methods and approaches as key in encouraging and nurturing dialogue; conversation, expression, experimentation and play are all relevant educational processes, in contrast with top-down “authoritative teaching”. We believe curiosity, reflection and 'trying things out' should be encouraged throughout experiences of learning, and that critical education is central to transforming the relationships, dynamics, activities and structures we witness today into ones that promote social justice, environmental sustainability, peace, solidarity, and greater equality.

This conversation and workshop will consider and explore what critical education is (and could be), by on this occasion focusing on the role of art and creative methods in addressing and encouraging dialogue on societal issues (problem-posing), and its instrumental potential in bringing people together to carry out social change.

Speakers will present some examples, thoughts and reflection, that will then be put to participants to question, discuss and build upon. Following this dialogue, we will invite participants to engage in a simple "creative action", that we hope will in turn further and grow this dialogue.