1. Global Encounters at a Dutch MFA
Intercultural Dialogue in Higher Art Education
Margo Slomp – April 14 & 15, MICA lecture

2. Some background information
Educated as art teacher (1991)
Educated as art historian (1994)
6-7 years of studio art practice (until 1998)
Tutor at University (Art History: and )
Tutor in Master Program Painting Hanze University ( and since 2005)

3. Some background information
Educated as art teacher (1991)
Educated as art historian (1994)
6-7 years of studio art practice (until 1998)
Tutor at University (Art History: and )
Tutor in Master Program Painting Hanze University ( and since 2005)

4. Some background information
Educated as art teacher (1991)
Educated as art historian (1994)
6-7 years of studio art practice (until 1998)
Tutor at University (Art History: and )
Tutor in Master Program Painting Hanze University ( and since 2005)

5. Some background information
Educated as art teacher (1991)
Educated as art historian (1994)
6-7 years of studio art practice (until 1998)
Tutor at University (Art History: and )
Tutor in Master Program Paiting Hanze University ( and since 2005)

6. Minerva Art Academy | Frank Mohr Institute

7. This is where I do what I do…

9. Outline of Presentation
Transnational Art World? (Carroll)
Intercultural Aesthetics
IC as a discipline
Some interesting terms and approaches for my research
Intercultural Communication & Dialogue
How do both above relate to HAE?
What is a good approach for intercultural education? (Caruana)
Higher Art Education
Doing ethnographic research into one’s own group…
Research Strategy

10. I. Intercultural Aesthetics
Biennial Venice 2005: “The transnational art world has put in place a language game replete with conversational presuppositions, hermeneutical gambits, recurring themes, and sense making strategies. This is a worldwide discursive framework – […] a toolkit […] for approaching and deciphering if not all then at least a very great deal of ambitious art from all over.” Noel Carroll, 2007.

11. I. Intercultural Aesthetics
Biennial Venice 2015;
This edition of the major art show is truly 'world encompassing’: “With all these voices from different continents the Biennial of Venice is with right the most important barometer of the art world.”
(Sandra Smallenburg. NRC Handelsblad, May 9, 2015)
Biennial Venice 2005: “The transnational art world has put in place a language game replete with conversational presuppositions, hermeneutical gambits, recurring themes, and sense making strategies. This is a worldwide discursive framework – […] a toolkit […] for approaching and deciphering if not all then at least a very great deal of ambitious art from all over.” Noel Carroll, 2007.

12. Sources Carroll, Noël. "Art and Globalization: Then and Now.” 131-143.
Feagin, Susan L., ed. Global Theories of the Arts and Aesthetics. Malden/London: Blackwell Synergy, Print.
Exploring and make accessible diversity of art- and aesthetic theories other than Western.
Through study of traditional arts.
Carroll, Noël.
"Art and Globalization:
Then and Now.”
 ‘Transnational art world’
 ‘Transnational Communication’
Feagin: less attention in Western art for process and physicality
Yung-Ho Chang, Bamboo Shoots, Installation, Venice Biennial, 2005

13. Sources
Braembussche, Anton van den, Heinz Kimmerle, and Nicole Note, eds. Intercultural Aesthetics. A Worldview Perspective. Springer, Print.
Hybrid world views
Methodologically trained viewing
Not trans- but intercultural

14. Sources Hans Georg Gadamer’s Hermeneutics horizon of experience
Xie, Ming. The Agon of Interpretations : Towards a Critical Intercultural Hermeneutics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Print.
Hans Georg Gadamer’s Hermeneutics
horizon of experience
Edmund Husserl’s & Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology
intermonde - ‘in between world’
 So: (art as) a space of encounter: what happens in that space?
[somewhat related to ‘interstice’ of Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics?]

15. II. Intercultural Communication & Dialogue
Two can play that game!

16. Intercultural Communication
Culture: Norms and values shared by a group and expressed in the behaviour of its members
Intercultural
Samovar and Porter: ‘Whenever the parties to a communication act bring with them different experential backgrounds that reflect a long-standing deposit of group experience, knowledge and values, we have intercultural communication.’ (Intercultural Communication: A Reader – 14th ed 2014)

17. Intercultural Communication
Edward T. Hall - ‘founder’ of Intercultural Communication as discipline in USA
(Silent Language, The Hidden Dimension, 1990.)
Cultural Dimensions
High or low context
‘describe a house’
Time
Linear vs flexible
Personal Space
Physical distance
Pace of information

18. Intercultural Communication
Edward T. Hall - ‘founder’ of Intercultural Communication as discipline in USA
(Silent Language, The Hidden Dimension, 1990.)
Cultural Dimensions
High or low context
Time
Personal Space
Pace of information
Geert Hofstede’s basic values for cultures

19. Intercultural Communication
Edward T. Hall - ‘founder’ of Intercultural Communication as discipline in USA
(Silent Language, The Hidden Dimension, 1990.)
Cultural Dimensions
High or low context
Time
Personal Space
Pace of information
Difficulties
Focused on nationality/ethnicity
(and created from Western Perspective)
Often focused on difference of one culture
Often manipulative instrumental
Often denying other competencies in interaction
Geert Hofstede’s basic values for cultures

20. Intercultural Communication
Transnational art worlds and communication
Intercultural Competences/Sensitivity 
‘Diversity Conscious Competences’
(Stefanie Rathje 2009)
Third Space
Homi Bhabha 1994
Transcultural Space
David Thomas 1996
Transdifference
Britta Kalscheuer 2009

21. Intercultural Communication (& Dialogue!)
Transnational art worlds and communication
Noel Carroll 2007
Intercultural Competences/Sensitivity 
‘Diversity Conscious Competences’
(Stefanie Rathje 2009)
Third Space
Homi Bhabha 1994
Transcultural Space
David Thomas 1996
Transdifference
Britta Kalscheuer 2009
Dialogic Communication
Mikhail Bakhtin ( )

22. III. Higher Art Education
Students FMI 2015/2016

23. Art Education =
Culture
of Conversation

25. Higher Art Education
“I was more [like an] estranged [Babylonian] that did not understand the exchanged language of ‘ways of seeing’ […] How can I say what I see, what can I see, or more likely what should I see and after all, what do I see? If I cannot say it, don’t I see it?”
Summer Yoon, MFA Painting,

26. Individual over Culture?
“But because in our work we attempt to be as true to ourselves as we can be, the diversity essentially becomes the differences among us as individuals and not as nationalities.”
(Student MFA Painting, 2015):
Life Stories
Viv Caruana 2014

27. IV. My Research (Question)
What are the intercultural aspects of speaking about art within a higher art education program and how can insight into them lead to a didactic approach in which they form an integral part?

28. Research Questions
What different concepts of art and culture are present in the conversations of an international group of MFA students?
What types of conversation are being used in the MFA program?
Does an international group of art students require a specific educational approach to bring underlying cultural concepts to the surface?
Should and can such approaches be developed (or adapted)?

29. Research Strategy Qualitative Research
Ethnographic study into the dialogue about art at an MFA
Ethnomethodology (conversation analysis)
Participative Observation of group conversations
(Narrative) Interviews

30. Pitfalls & Ethical issues?
Investigating own group
Teacher and Researcher