Outside in: The tension between curatorial practice and research

Teacher Education Quarterly, Spring 2000 by Stevenson, Christine, White, Margaret

A collaborative exhibition, entitled Drawing on the Art of Children: An Historical Perspective of Children's Art in the Twentieth Century, was held in Sydney in 1997, and in Melbourne in 1998. This exhibition, curated by us, raises questions about the role and definition of research. Key questions include: Are exhibitions and their catalogues recognized as educational research? Is it useful to evaluate exhibitions in terms of their contribution to research?

We are both teacher educators situated in a program of early childhood education. Issues of early childhood education and teacher education are, therefore, frequently a focus of our work as scholars within the academy and teachers of and about the place of the arts in education and schools.

The Context of the Research

Our shared interest in the socio-cultural contexts which affect the perception of children's art was instrumental in our collaboration on this exhibition. Several earlier collaborative exhibitions of children's art had raised significant research questions. In particular, two recurring and seemingly incongruous statements provided the germ of the idea for the exhibition. When Picasso's claim, "Once I drew like Raphael but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child," is set beside the rather disparaging comment, "My five-year-old could do that!," it exemplifies a paradox about the nature of adult's and children's art. Modernism provided a theoretical framework for such opposing viewpoints.

The collaborative style of this research drew on our individual skills and backgrounds. Margaret's interest in the history of early childhood education, the arts, end creativity, and Christine's interest in the links between children's art, Primitivism, and Modernism gave particular shape to the planning of the exhibition. Further collaboration with library staff, staff at the National Gallery of Australia, and catalogue designers, emphasized the essentially collaborative nature of this kind of research.

Are Exhibitions and their Catalogues Recognized as Research?

At present, exhibitions are not valued as highly as articles or book chapters, by the government bodies that fund universities in Australia. The research endeavor of curating an exhibition or writing a catalogue essay are seen as equivalent to writing a review of an art exhibition or performance. Clearly, this reality could act as a disincentive to those taking a pragmatic approach to their employment status. Apart from the research quantum, the labor-intensive nature of these projects is also a consideration in terms of allocation of time. So why have we chosen to continue putting our scholarly energies into exhibitions? Our choice is influenced by two further questions. Are there forms of recognition other than government funding models? And, could we use a broader definition of research?

As stated in the exhibition catalogue, "the conceptual basis for the exhibition has come from the engagement of children in making art and the perception and value which adults place on the process of artmaking" White & Stevenson, 1997, p. 2) . This engagement in artmaking is not easily communicated in writing. The concrete examples of children's art from a number of different sources are more likely to give a tangible sense of this engagement. With very few exceptions, we all share the experience of having once made drawings in our childhood.

Children's art is not only a source of fascination for some academics and artists, but offers points of inquiry for all adults curious about their own imaginative development. The universal interest in the freshness of the vision of children was beautifully described by Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig (1998) in his opening address at the Melbourne exhibition venue, Preshil school. His words appear to have some resonance with Picasso's statement referred to earlier.

I am sometimes dumbfounded by children's art, by the poignancy and touching quality of children's drawings, they always catch me by surprise. It's a moving thing, always just a simple moving thing and tinged with a certain sadness. I can't interpret that sadness, perhaps there's some memory of the sense of childhood in every child's drawing. I think this is a very vitally important thing to keep coming back to, how we feel when we stand before them, apart from all that interpretation, all that documentation and understanding and child development that is so valuable, there is still this beautiful moment when we look at a child's drawing. And they're all so different, as we are all different, but eventually...there's one that seems to stop us...I suspect there's something lost, some memory, some beautiful thing, a sense of beauty there.

Perhaps a further reason for the choice of an exhibition to communicate ideas about contextual issues affecting the perception of children's art lies in contemporary beliefs about the way knowledge is configured. Our own ideas about children's art have been formed over a long period of time, beginning with strong childhood experiences. That viewers would come to the exhibition with their own set of lenses with which to make sense of the exhibited materials was therefore anticipated. As Robert Hodge and Wilfred d'Souza (1994, p. 38) point out: