Teacher as Conceptual Artist is not a method, rather it is a mode of living simultaneously as a teacher and an artist through the permissions of conceptual art. The teacher who works as a conceptual artist only sometimes produces art objects or events, although they frequently think and act through dematerialized, time-based, and relational modes. The teacher (or anyone) can be a conceptual artist merely through breathing since the act of respiration—even while physically inactive—reverberates through the cosmos in a manner that is both material and poetic. Breathing as conceptual art—like teaching as conceptual art—is a circular act of self-identification and proclamation. To become a teacher as conceptual artist one must think it then say it, always.

Working conceptually through the arts is typically concretized in narrow forms of arts that are predicated on ideas. This manner of making and thinking has an approximate 100 year history in the West, but more recently—due to its very nature as transdisciplinary—has become relevant to all sorts of practices including activism, collecting, cleaning, health, design, cooking, business, parenting, being in love, sleeping, writing, performing and teaching.

This exhibition showcases the work of 15 different practitioners in partnership with a variety of primary and secondary Dutch pupils during the months of March-May 2018. In their roles as teachers, these practitioners—who identify as dancers, visual artists, musicians, and theatre performers—gave special attention to how everything around and in their teaching practice can be understood and transformed through a conceptual arts lens. Some of what is exhibited here is evidence of the work that was performed and made alongside pupils but other parts of this exhibition were gathered from the everyday activities that orbit both the teaching and arts practice of the participants. This exhibition puts a parenthesis around the everyday activities of sending an email, playing a game, making a joke or asking a question. It puts a parenthesis around being compassionate or absurd; around being in love or being afraid. It represents the acts of reading, writing, traveling, watching television, walking, caring for others, cooking, listening to music, listening to silence, making conversation, and making plans. This exhibition tries to capture what can’t usually be captured: Thousands of breaths actively accumulating into a life.

Contributors to the exhibition: Johanna Biesewig, Rogier Dasselaar, Rosie Derksen, Anita Ebrahimi, Ella Jonker, Marjolein Karman, Maarten Koole, Jorge Lucero, Lisanne Meijers, Milou Pistor, Kari-Anne Souwer, Tibor van den Brink, Lili van Doorninck, Sanne van Elk, Meke Vrienten, Jente Witte.

Curator, Jorge Lucero

Research Group Arts Education & the Artist in Residence programme