artway of thinking�

Introduction to

Syllabus for Art on Location: artway of thinking

Winter Interim course at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Introduction

How do we, Federica and Stefania, envision ourselves outside art school and in the city?

Fifteen years ago, when we began our research together on art making in social environment, we asked ourselves this question, both of us starting from a feeling of personal uneasiness: separation, isolation, limits of communication, social uselessness of art. The codes of art expression learned at school (for us, the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice), limited the act of artmaking and didn't suggest a professional role in art that is interconnected with society�s future.

So, we imagined an artist who operates together with other professionals in the development of the contemporary society—a professional whose �value-added� dimension is in bringing creative thought to planning, has the courage to imagine in non-conformist ways, and brings innovation to production. We felt in sympathy with Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto when he says: "The artist must be everywhere, not only in galleries and museums; he must participate in every possible activity. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in different human enterprises, on all levels, from execution to decision-making."

With this image of the artist, the question we have continually addressed in our research is:

How? How can an artist bring creativity to processes of socially responsible transformation?

Today, after our experience with living, we can affirm that making art for us is in primis: the natural way in which we create relationships in the world and where we build life experiences. Being an artist is to express one�s soul; it takes form as a job and in daily life. We firmly believe that the responsibility of artists is to act with awareness in order to produce and inspire responsible changes in themselves, in personal relationships and in society. Through experience, we have learned that cannot bring to the world what we ourselves have not digested and metabolized.

We recognize, too, the value of operating as a group, creating together in an interdisciplinary way. We have made this value our principal way of act: activating collective creative processes in social and public environments, with total attention toward revealing the unknown dynamics of process at work, and with the intention to harmonize and speed up these processes of personal and collective change and growth.

The opportunity to live an experience together in Chicago begins from a meeting with Mary Jane Jacob. She came to Venice and shared with us a dream, a vision: to think about the role of the SAIC in Chicago, to identify its value to the art community and to society there, to consider the paradigm of the school not as a closed learning place but as a neural-net that--through the students, teachers, affiliates, and collaborators--proposes culture and builds innovation within the city.

We proposed an intervention that takes up fundamental questions:

How is the school, with its subjects, become a builder of values, innovation, and cultural visions in Chicago? How can we give SAIC students new opportunities to build their future, to show them new possible spaces in which to express themselves, their values, and their creativity?

What is the artist�s role in the society?

How do we build connections and relationships between the pedagogical systems, and cultural and production systems?

How can we facilitate the meeting, the exchange, the relationship between the students and SAIC who have already found alternative or parallel ways of work that are beyond the mainstream art system and allow then to practice an integrated way of being an artist-in-life?

With enthusiasm we take up this assignment offered by Mary Jane Jacob as curator and by SAIC and the desire to draw a net between school-learning and social/art-professions.

We believe this is a focal point today:

� For art students to locate a professional role or typology as an artist who operates inside the public, social, and cultural dimensions

� To find how this can be a possibility for a job and for creative expression--an art practice

� At the same time, to consider how in society--public administration systems, private institutions with public agendas, social services, and the world of production--a professional artist can be a constructive force, add value to the process, and contribute to the politics of transformation of this wider realm.

Over fifteen years we gained experience as artists operating in the public realm. We believe that in comparison to professionals in other public-oriented fields, artists have a distinct advantage because of the quality of innovation they bring to the task. Practicing an open mind, they can depart from closed forms, easily imagine other landscapes, and bring beauty. Being visionaries and nonconformist, if directed toward collective ends, their positive and transformative energy offers enthusiasm and trust in the process, and opens toward new visions. The paradigm of the artist disempowered from making a difference, unable to participate and shape decision making in the public realm, changes when artists makes the first step and enters the world sure that they do, indeed, have something important to offer and to share.