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- The Citizen Voices Team
Visual Art National and International Mentorship Learning
by Sam Carter and Sheila Hall, Emily Carr University of Art+Design
The Spirit of Place Projects connect young artists with visual art mentors in Canada and throughout the world. The projects encourage and celebrate creativity, expression, community engagement and “one-on-one” communication that is essential to living creative lives.
The idea of “Spirit of Place” enables the artistic practice of youth to flourish in all parts of the world by supporting and providing mentorship and practical experience for learning beyond the classroom. Mentorship, as a right of passage, is critical for our youth. We all have a responsibility to share our knowledge, skills and abilities with the next generation. Mentors may be neighbours, relatives, professionals or amateurs willing to support and encourage youth.
As citizens, we learn in multiple ways. Learning takes place throughout our lives, through activities and experiences at home, in educational institutions, within our communities, through reading and research, and in our places of work. For today’s youth, this includes global learning through technology. The idea of learning and creative living continuing “after school” is central to young artists. The question then becomes, how do we look at the whole life of the child as a creative experience, and how do we value and support this in our communities? When established artists mentor emerging youth artists, it provides an avenue for quality, one-on-one experiences that are essential to the development of excellence.
In the winter of 2003, Emily Carr University (ECU) and the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) collaboratively initiated a project to engage both Canadian and African youth. This project encouraged creativity and expressions of individual and collective visual art practice, supporting both young Africans’ place in the world and young Canadian art students as mentors. In Africa, as in so many other parts of the world, young people do not have access to the expertise and tools needed to facilitate self-expression and creativity. Students and faculty from ECU teamed up with ACPF to establish a mentorship program for hundreds of young artists in Addis Ababa. The program, and the CIDA-supported internship that followed in 2004-2005, sparked a creative outflow of images and learning.
In 2008, in British Columbia, 15 alumni of ECU, residing throughout the province, each selected five young artists from their respective regions to mentor for the Spirit of Place, Culture, Sport and Sustainability British Columbia Young Artists Exhibition, as part of the Cultural Olympiad 2008 (http://spiritofplace.ecuad.ca).
The projects in Africa and British Columbia lay the groundwork for the artists’ mentorship to continue locally, nationally and internationally.
We have begun similar projects at home and abroad to connect young artists with mentors. The focus of our endeavours is to provide in-depth learning experiences for youth, and opportunities to instil confidence in and encourage support of young artists and their mentors, improving society’s overall quality of life.
Sam Carter, Sheila Hall
Co-Curators and Educators, Emily Carr University of Art+Design
Vancouver, British Columbia
1 Comments
It takes one great idea to get two heads rolling.
Support of any artists should be on the agenda, like the ones not known. How about the artists not associated with university, true talent never recognized.
I propose bringing these unknown artists to light, to let their light shine in deserved recognition. Television commercials, pamphets, library message boards, internet information, are some different ways of reaching out to the unknowns.
It appears only the educated have these opportunities of recognition, that's because the educated are the supported people who support one another, which is excellent, but who supports the dull and ignorant for they too have their stories. And a piece of Art speaks it's intelligence, not it's education!
To be educated is not necessarily to be influential, however to be influential is to definately be educated.
Lets have real interaction, the educated mingling with the non-educated. Ideas come to anyone regardless of their education status. An influential piece of Art is one accepted by the people, and shouldn't be one accepted through the Artists credentials, because the Artist may not have any credentials other than their Artwork.
I'm all for ideas, regardless of where they come from. One doesn't need education to possess great ideas, however, education supports itself and those associated with it. Education is more accepted than those not educated, that's as bad as racism, however, to be educated is to be structured and supported. So I encourage any kind of education, because without it you're on your own!
In conclusion, I would like to see the deserving unknown Artists come to light, deserving in that they focused on something they've produced and therefore should receive recognition for their efforts.