Tag: NAFAE

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Art Education as Training of the Senses

I will be leading an online discussion on the theme of ‘Art Education as Training of the Senses’ on Monday 23rd Feb from 6 – 7 pm as part of the National Association of Fine Art Education’s NAFNET series of events. The event is free and open to non-members. You can book your place here.

I will give a short introduction to open the discussion. Below is a bullet-point overview of the introduction:

Background

  • BA Fine Art with Psychology at Worcester
  • Curriculum redesigned to integrate psychology into fine art teaching
  • Students interested in art therapy often have lived personal experience of mental health issues, neurodevelopmental disorders and autism, and secondary experiences of severe mental health conditions, addiction and dementia
  • Covid pandemic of 2021 exacerbates problem of overwhelm of NHS mental health support
  • How might socially-engaged arts practices address public mental health crisis
  • Arts and Health Research Group at UW came out of that

Teaching Context

  • A significant percentage of students have common mental health conditions, neurodevelopmental disorders or autism characteristics
  • Fine Art education historically welcoming of neurodivergent people
  • Studio teaching is especially accommodating of these differences
  • Studio as safe environment
  • Attention issues evident for the last 20 years. Students glued to mobile phones
  • Smart phones directly implicated in an increase in mental health issues, especially anxiety, depression and ADHD
  • Intensified by consequences of Generative AI
  • How to get students off their phones and screens
  • Five ways to Wellbeing: Human connection, physical activity, attentiveness, learn new skills, giving

Art Education as Training of the Senses

  • Art as Education of the Senses: 19th century idea (John Ruskin), roots in Schiller’s Letters on Aesthetic Education (German Romanticism, Goethe)
  • Alternative educational models: Steiner, Montessori, Reggio Emilia
  • Marshall McLuhan: new media transform the ‘ratio of the senses’
  • Deep Listening: tasting, touching, hearing, smelling, sensing
  • Mindfulness and embodiment practices: bring the body back into teaching
  • The senses think. Thought is a sense.
  • Aligning Fine Art Education with Creative Health

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NAFAE Conference 2026: Call for Papers

This year’s National Association for Fine Art Education conference ‘IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE AN ARTIST: LOCAL, TRANS-LOCAL, GLOBAL’ will take place at Champness Hall, Rochdale on Friday 24th April 2026.

The focus of the conference will be co-operation, conflicts and collective agency in defence of creative and cultural education and placemaking.

We welcome proposals on the following themes:

Space and Place

● How do we define ‘region’ in an era where administrative boundaries, cultural identities and economic geographies no longer align?

● In what ways do place-based practices, geographies and cultural infrastructures contribute to, or challenge, broader ideas of regional or national identity within the arts?

● What is the shape and place of the future campus?

Emerging needs and priorities

● What priority and emerging creative and cultural skills most effectively promote lifelong learning and learner agency?

● What will shape the form of the educational offer and curriculum for Fine and Visual Art practices in terms of pedagogies, adult education and co-operative learning?

● How important is accreditation (i.e. what are the freedoms/restrictions it imposes for students and curriculum planners?)

Partnership and co-operation

● What are the weighted contributions of investors and stakeholders supporting educational initiatives marked as alternative to establishment institutions?

● Who are the private providers of education and lifelong learning that can be trusted to deliver with integrity or in any way enhance the current landscape?

● How can resourcing and facilities be modelled to best enable sustained practices and relevant growth from the activity?

Local, Translocal and Global

● What are the international exemplars for co-operation and where are the potential allies that will help to secure a fairer and more resilient accessible Fine Art ecology?

● Art and art practices are a public and civic good and underpin global citizenship and belonging.

● Why, if we consider the concept of paideia, we have failed to convince decision-makers of the contribution that creative arts make?

You can find our more about the conference here.

Proposals for contributions should be submitted to: admin@nafae.org.uk no later than Friday 13 February 2026. Decisions on contributions for our next NAFAE conference will be communicated to the participants by 27 February 2026.

To submit a proposal for contributions, you must be a NAFAE member. To join NAFAE please visit the membership page.

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NAFAE Annual Conference 2024: The Art of Resistance | UCA Canterbury, Kent

This year’s National Association For Fine Art Education Conference – The Art of Resistance – will take place at UCA Canterbury on Wednesday September 4th from 10.00 – 16.00. Tickets are free but places are limited. You can reserve your place here.

NAFAE has put aside a small amount of reserve to assist with travel costs for those colleagues who may have concerns about the expenses associated with the conference. To enable this first book your place via the link above and then submit a request for assistance to admin@nafae.org.uk before Wednesday August 14th. NAFAE will pay agreed reimbursements at the conference in September.