Week IX

Research Presentation Week

Overall, Monday's presentation went well. Fiona's feedback was brief but positive, although she did mention the need for more primary research. It was a small inconvenience that the teachers I interviewed couldn't send me their responses prior to the presentation, but nonetheless, I was able to put together slides summarizing the project and secondary research I had gathered up to that point. You can view this week's slides in the button below.

After speaking with Fiona, we agreed that the most important thing right now is to speak with my contact list, now that I know which direction the project has taken. Additionally, we agreed that the best strategy for the campaign I want to run is a guerrilla warfare strategy on the streets, perhaps with the faces of the painters. Therefore, what I want to do next is speak with different galleries to see if they can lend me any space where people can interact with these artists. For this, I not only have to select the women I want to feature, but also create a brand or organization that supports the entire campaign.

Conclusions after Term II

After my research, I believe that the teaching community is quite aware of the need for curriculums to broaden the content on gender matters, as gender perspective is just another way to promote critical thinking among students (something that’s part of their job). This fact is important for me, as teachers are my secondary stakeholders, and with institutions like museums, they are the ones who can pass on the knowledge. Regarding this, I have concluded that women artists should not be treated as a separate curiosity like governments’ curriculums are trying to paint it, but rather as any human artistic creation should be understood, studied, and transmitted, and for that reason, students deserve to know and study it. They deserve to have a curriculum updated and loyal to historical rigour. Only through education can we create a more egalitarian society, and at the moment, despite the efforts that are being made to advance towards a more equitable art history, there are still many steps to be taken while the educational contents remain so unbalanced. The first step, then, would be to name the artists, for if something is not named, it doesn’t exist. 

At first, I considered the solution as the possibility of designing booklets or catalogues so that teachers would have accessible and straightforward support with which to transmit information to students. However, my research allowed me to discover that this curricular support would be useless if teachers are not going to be able to use it due to a lack of time in the classroom since the end-of-year exams demand a lot of content in a short time. 

In this way, I have oriented my project instead towards the institutions that do have a saying on the subject and can decide what enters the agendas of the students, through a street campaign. I have seen that on other occasions, teachers' movements such as the #stateoftheart in 2019 (Keogh, A., 2020) in Ireland have had a great impact, and since something similar has never been done in Dublin in relation to women artists, it is an interesting possible solution. The campaign would include a brand and a platform where the information I wanted to add to the catalogues could be included. Finally, it would be great to count with the collaboration of museums such as the National Gallery of Ireland.

1. HHU13002 gender: History, culture, and representation (no date) HHU13002 Gender: History, Culture, and Representation - The Centre for Gender and Women's Studies - Trinity College Dublin. Available at: https://www.tcd.ie/cgws/courses/Gender-History.php (Accessed: March 11, 2023).

2. Keogh, A. (2020), Art as Activism #stateoftheart: The Art Teachers Association of Ireland's campaign towards reform of the Leaving Certificate Art Curriculum. Int J Art Des Educ, 39: 85-97.

3. Leaving Cert Art - exam papers & marking schemes (2020) The Leaving Cert. Available at: https://theleavingcert.com/exam-papers/art/ (Accessed: March 11, 2023).

4. Nochlin, L. (2020) From 1971: Why have there been no great women artists?, ARTnews.com. ARTnews.com. Available at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists-4201/ (Accessed: Febuary 24, 2023).

5. Nochlin, L. (2021) Why have there been no great women artists? London: Thames & Hudson.

6. Past exam papers: State exams by Topic & Marking Schemes (no date) Studyclix. Available at: https://www.studyclix.ie/papers#1042726 (Accessed: March 11, 2023).

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