VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

This paper proposes a model for tertiary arts education that embeds artists within communities and adopts a horizontal pedagogical framework. It revisits two influential moments in British art education: the 1969 “Locked Room” experiment at St Martins School of Art, which fostered individual creative autonomy through isolation, and the “Art and Social Context” course initiated at Dartington College of Art in 1978, which situated artistic practice within everyday social environments. While the former privileged introspection, the latter advanced a “listening model” of practice grounded in community engagement, cultural inquiry, and site-responsive work. Building on these precedents, the paper examines the Environmental Art department at the Glasgow School of Art, where interdisciplinary exchange and limited institutional resources encouraged students to work across media and in direct relation to diverse publics. These examples collectively mark a shift from the notion of the artist as an isolated figure toward one embedded in social, political, and cultural realities. The paper argues for a reconfiguration of pedagogical relationships in contemporary art education through a horizontal model informed by concepts such as the Māori notion of ako, where teaching and learning are reciprocal. In an era shaped by artificial intelligence and increasingly diverse student experiences, knowledge production can no longer be understood as a one-directional transfer from teacher to student. Instead, it emerges collaboratively through situated practice and lived engagement. Ultimately, the paper advocates for an educational framework that integrates community-based residencies with co-constructed learning, positioning art schools as dynamic “communities of scholars” responsive to contemporary conditions.