To Throw Oneself Into the Fray: A Qualitative Evaluation Study Into the Educational Potential of Contemporary Artistic Activism for Practices of Art and Citizenship Education

Abstract

This article is an evaluative research study, mapping the outcomes of the art and citizenship project Dealing with the real stuff, in which students developed the competences of critical thinking and creative resistance. During this project, Dutch students at a school for compulsory education, aged 15–16 years, studied activist art, participated in workshops led by activist artists, and performed an artistic intervention in a public space. Central to the evaluation were students' and teachers' experiences of the project and the recommendations they made to improve the project for the following year. The project was evaluated through observations, interviews, learner reports, and document analysis. Concerning the experiences of the project, the findings show that students were positive about the focus on real-world issues and learning by doing. Yet, they were critical about the imposed character of activism within the context of a school project. Some students also expressed anxiety about performing an artistic intervention in a public space. The teachers observed that asking students to throw themselves into the fray can be too much, as students at this age do not really know yet what they stand for. Students' and teachers' recommendations were that the project should find a balance between discomfort and creating safe spaces to reflect and discuss personal, sometimes contradictory views. As such, this study exemplifies how artistic activism contributes to making citizenship education more active and art education more contemporary by focusing on current social issues and ways of working of present-day activist artists.