“TELL THEM WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS”
HIGHER ART EDUCATION OF COMMUNITY ARTS MADE IN PRISONS
Keywords:
social pedagogy, higher art pedagogy, prison art, community artsAbstract
This article deals with higher art education of community arts in prisons – like visual arts, music or performing arts. I also use shorthand term “prison arts”. Prison arts are often considered valuable. This working field is also challenging and lonely for artists, which makes it meaningful to develop the education of prison arts. The research question is: what kind of higher arts education gives the students readiness for community arts made in prisons? This article is based on my background as an artist, an art pedagogue and a researcher in several prisons. The frame of reference is embedded in studies of community arts, art pedagogy and social pedagogy. I have collected data in context of more extensive artistic action research by participatory observing and interviews. I started the analyzing of the data by inductive content analysis. I have also utilized a concept of relationality in analysis. As the results I introduce and analyze following themes: the knowledge of context, shared artistic activity and ethical questions of making and teaching prison arts. On the basis of the results I make recommendations which can be utilized for example in different graduate programs or continuing training when the aim is to familiarize with prison art.
