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Concepts of Art and Interpretation in Interviews with Educators from Tate Britain Amaia Arriaga and Imanol Aguirre
Abstract Educational practices in art museums are determined, to a great degree, by ideas of art and interpretation put into play, consciously or not, by both museums and educators. This article presents the results of research conducted at Tate Britain in which we have analysed the concepts of art and interpretation that underlie the discourses of the educators interviewed in this gallery. To this end we have designed a methodological device, a model that proposes four ways of understanding and interpreting art commonly found in educational contexts. This model has arranged the various conceptions from more visual or perceptual approaches to the most experientially complex as those summarised below: works of art as a visual representation and interpretation as identification; works of art as a message to be revealed, and interpretation as decodification; works of art as an intellectual, historical and cultural fact, and interpretation as an opportunity for critical reflection; works of art as the materialisation of an experience, and interpretation as an opportu-
nity for self-development. We conclude that in interviews with educators working in the Tate Britain different narratives about the idea of art and the idea of interpretation coexist, which in many cases are complementary and in some others are contradictory. Examples of the interviews are presented throughout the article. Keywords museum, education, art, interpretation, gallery
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The educational practices in art museums are largely determined by ideas of art and interpretation [1] put into play, consciously or not, by museum educators. For this reason, the most influential researchers and professionals involved in museum education have dealt with the issue of interpretation from diverse points of view. Research, reflections and proposals about interpretation practices in museum education may draw upon new art histories (Mayer 1999), new theories of communication (Hooper-Greenhill 2000), narrative forms of education (Garoian 2001; Reese 2003) and other approaches from different aesthetic points of view, like the hermeneutics of Gadamer (Meszaros 2007), Dewey’s aesthetic and pedagogic philosophy (Costantino 2008; Van Moer et al. 2008), Umberto Eco’s ideas about literary texts (Hubard 2007) or Csikzentmihaly’s ideas on aesthetic experience (Lachapelle et al. 2003; Lankford 2002), among others. In this context, we have sought to analyse the meaning-making traditions that can be found in museum educators’ discourses and the ideas about art and the comprehension of aesthetics with which they correspond. This article presents some of the conclusions drawn from qualitative research [2] carried out at Tate Britain to describe, analyse and compare the different ideas of art and interpretation that emerge when educators working in the gallery talk about their educational activity. Why Tate? Tate is known for emphasising its educational role. Therefore, its educational philosophy and methodology is better defined, clarified and conceptualised than that of other galleries, as can be verified in the didactic books it publishes (Charman et al. 2006) and in its many educational programmes, in which a framework (Ways In) is presented for approaching the interpretation of works of art in educational activities [3]. Tate is also valued for the creation of curatorial proposals that consider how to respond to new ways of creating and understanding art. These proposals grant the spectator greater agency in the construction of meaning, and they
engage him or her in alternative ways of interpreting the artists’ creations (Marsh 2004). Finally, another reason that motivated us to develop our research at one of this institution’s galleries is that they give great importance to the investigation of these activities by developing their own studies and allowing their programmes and educators to be the object of analysis (Charman & Ross 2006; Downing 2005; Page et al. 2006; Pringle 2009; Ross et al. 2004). Research methodology To understand the educators’ opinions and viewpoints and to allow different ideas of art to emerge, we conducted in-depth interviews with five educators [4] with different educational backgrounds who develop activities for school groups that the museum offers as one-day visits. Although the interviews included some structured questions, the interaction became less of a directed conversation as the questions were presented in an open-ended manner. Nevertheless, all the interviews shared a large number of questions aimed at fostering a debate on the following topics: (a) Academic training and work experience of the interviewees. (b) The interviewees’ responsibilities, roles and tasks at Tate Britain. (c) The opinion of the interviewees on the educational theory and methodology of Tate Britain. (d) The opinion of the interviewees on matters related to the interpretation of works of art, such as reasons for interpreting works of art, limits to and criteria for interpretation, focus of the interpretation on aspects of the work, authority and legitimacy in interpretation and changes in conceptions and practice of interpretation according to variables such as age of the visiting group or type of art object of interpretation. The interviews were recorded, transcribed [5] and subjected to analysis using the discourse analysis methodology. Our methodological apparatus and the results in this article provide an account that is organised around four narratives of art and interpretation. We consider
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these narratives representative of categories from which to discuss educational philosophy and the work of museums as well as the values and beliefs that serve as their foundation: • concept of art as a visual representation and interpretation as identification; • concept of art as communication and interpretation as decodification; • concept of art as an intellectual, historical and cultural fact, and interpretation as an opportunity for critical reflection; • concept of art as experience and interpretation as an opportunity for self-development. Because these foci are almost never given in their pure state, their limits are arbitrary and diffuse. For this reason, they are void of taxonomic purposes. Rather, they help to more clearly organise the concepts underlying the educational discourses analysed because such narratives are inserted in the processes of meaning making of historically and culturally situated communities. Our intention is not to judge the concepts held by the professionals working at Tate Britain, but rather to reflect on the ways certain ideas about art and interpretation are articulated in these discourses – ideas that these educators share with many other professionals working in museums. When educators understand works of art as a visual representation and interpretation as identification, recognition and description The analyses revealed the important presence of reflections, expressions and learning proposals that coincide with a concept of art as a fundamentally visual manifestation and centred on the appearance of the representation. When talking about their work, the educators we interviewed frequently used terms such as ‘look’ or ‘see’. In the same way, they explain that they often base their strategies for interpretation on the observation, identification or description of the visual aspects of the work, which is one of the four ways of approaching the interpretation of works of art proposed by the Ways
In framework. Nevertheless, we have observed that this ‘visuality’ acquires different connotations depending on the educator who acts as the intermediator as well as the circumstances in which the mediation is developed. At various points in the interviews we found that the act of looking, this first contact, which naturally occurs through one’s sense of perception, becomes the truly important and indispensable factor through which the learner initiates a relationship with the artwork. In other cases, despite the understanding of the Ways In that sees the analysis of the visual aspects of the work as one of the multiple possible interpretive approaches, some educators consider this analysis of the visual aspects an objective in itself. To work one’s vision without further information is the necessary and sufficient condition for interpretation and education, as affirmed in the following reflection: It is the idea of getting to look and realise that you can work it out by looking to the image very often, rather than necessarily having to read all about it. (Peter) As can be understood from the previous quotation, in this approach the artwork often becomes the fundamental source for interpretation because its literal or manifest aspects are considered the only necessary information to arrive at the meaning. On occasion, even the act of looking is conceived as an independent ability or not necessarily subject to knowledge [6]. I would usually just look at the paintings because that is what you are dealing with: people who know nothing. And it is not about knowing, it is about looking and it is really about teaching people how to look. (Peter) Thus, limiting oneself to the act of seeing and being as ‘objective’ as possible is considered a sufficient aim and outcome of the didactic experience. In fact, in the educational activities we observed, many educators focused their activities on recognising what the work shows. This
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is suggested in the following interactions, which demonstrate the ways two different educators approach the interpretation of diverse works of art by identifying what is represented in them: Laura: We’ve got pictures on the floor! Have a look at the pictures and see if you can recognise anything. Peter: OK, tell me about this painting. What particular things can you see in this painting? What we find most interesting is that the act of seeing is that what some educators are referring to when they speak of ‘personal response’: I think, [when we talk about] personal response, we are talking about what they see. I don’t ask them ‘How would you interpret this entire picture? What is your personal response to that?’, I ask them what do they see. (Jane) For others, the act of seeing is what enables the personal response to emerge: Because I would ask them, ‘What can you see? What is your response?’ That is certainly the way I would start, by just drawing out their personal response to what they see. (Peter) Thus, the personal response is associated with a perceptual selection, as can be understood in the following fragment: You start with the personal responses to watch what is relevant in the work you are looking at. But it is still coming from them. If they notice the bird in the sky you speak about the bird in the sky. (Peter) However, these kinds of questions, instead of giving agency to the learner and his or her subjectivity in the construction of meaning, relegate the learner’s role to seeing and learning to see. In these examples, the purpose of the question–answer process (and hence, of the interpretation) is to recognise the similarities
between what the artwork represents and the reality of the physical world. This corresponds to a representational idea of art, the main purpose of which is the mimesis of visual appearance. For this reason, the occasional distinction by educators between abstract art and what they describe as ‘traditional art’ and link to figurative works is logical. As the educator points out in the following reflection, with ‘traditional’ art – where the source, criteria and limits to the construction of meaning are strictly the visualisation of the artwork itself – the question ‘What do you see?’ can be a useful tool. This educator understands that non-figurative art requires a more demanding effort for its interpretation. He shares the idea that contemporary art demands more questioning and thinking with other education professionals, as pointed out in a study conducted by Tara Page and other researchers (Page et al. 2006). If you are dealing with something that is completely abstract, you can’t do a question– answer about an abstract work. There is a piece by Ellsworth Kelly, called ‘White Curve’, and is sort of a fan shaped object which is white. You can’t go much further with question–answer than ‘what do you see? OK, a fan shaped object that is white. […] Whereas here, partly because we have a lot of traditional art, where you can see what it is, it is easier to do ‘question and answer’. (Peter) When educators understand works of art as a sign or message to be revealed and interpretation as decodification Beyond the focus on pure appearance and visuality, our analysis detected that educators at Tate Britain occasionally consider art as a set of signs that act as a language, and the artwork as a text that must be ‘revealed’. Therefore, the act of interpreting or understanding implies penetrating into that which the artwork deals with. [Explaining her educational objectives] … trying to encourage children and young people to look and to think that they can read the sign or the text just by actually looking at the work, because
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everything they need to know is in the work. (Mary) We identified this approach particularly when educators focused on the idea of ‘decoding’ or ‘reading’ instead of ‘seeing’ or ‘looking’, as emphasised in the previous quotation. Contrary to interpretation understood as a process of identifying, the act of reading, decoding or deconstructing implies more complex cognitive actions than the simple act of ‘seeing’. As some of the educators suggest, in these cases, looking becomes the necessary point of departure toward more complex forms of the interpretation of meaning:
Educator: Well, there’s a clue in the painting that tells us she’s going to die.
It is difficult really looking and that is a skill that one acquires, when you are an adult or a child. That is the sort of the grounding that enables you to take any interpretative step. You can’t interpret anything or do anything with anything if you don’t look at it first of all. (Jane)
Student visitor: Her life.
Through our analysis, we also detected occasions when the educators were in favour of the idea that interpretation must not depend only on information acquired through the senses, but rather that it must be complemented by other knowledge provided by experts or mediators. One example of this is given by Peter, who believes that the correct interpretation of a work of art requires a knowledge and respect of its cultural context and linguistic background or code: Yes, there are wrong interpretations but they are easily demonstrable I guess. But then there are subtle ones when you need to know the context to understand why these might be wrong. If you are talking about subjects and meaning, then is when context becomes very important. (Peter) During an educational interaction developed by Peter in front of the painting The Lady of Shalott, by John William Waterhouse, we have observed the idea that to be able to read the works of art, one must understand the conventions of a particular symbolic system.
Student visitor: The candles. Educator: The candles; yes. There are three candles, two of them have gone out and one of them still has a flame. Student visitor: And when it blows out she is going to die. Educator: […] The candles are a symbol; they stand for something else here.
This approach is founded on semiotic theories, according to which a plurality of meanings may exist because different layers of meaning coexist in the work of art. However, this does not necessarily imply that all interpretations are equally correct or acceptable. For example, we have observed that some educators identify the words ‘meaning’, ‘message’ and ‘content’ [7] of the work of art with its narrative aspects, in other words, the subject or theme it presents. Consequently, amongst other possible options, they choose to lead the act of interpretation toward the task of decoding the story told by the work of art. [Discussing the Ways In framework] I think it is quite balanced and it covers everything. […] The way to talk about an artwork, from your personal response, right through to the context, the materials and the meaning and the messages, the stories there are [sic]. (Marc) Within this same concept of art and interpretation, we have encountered opinions that relate the correct reading of the work of art with finding the artist’s intentions. In these cases, educators share a belief, firmly rooted in our school culture (Charman & Ross 2006), according to which the artists’ intentions are key to the interpretation of works of art. Although this idea has been contested by literary and artistic criticism
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since the 1960s (Barthes 1967/1992; Eco 1962/1985), we found it in the speeches of some educators. This is the case when Marc uses the expression ‘to read properly’ to describe an interpretation that reaches for or finds the message portrayed by the artist. There might well be a message that the artist wants to portray but you can’t guarantee that this message is going to get across. You can’t keep going back and checking: are they reading it properly? (Marc) Nevertheless, most educators think, as Marc does, that it is not necessary to try to find the ‘true’ meaning when developing educational activities with school groups. In this sense, educators recognise the difficulty of taking into account artistic intention, without basing interpretations upon it, as Pringle (2009) pointed out in her study about the artist educators working at Tate Modern. The following excerpt from an interaction led by Mary, in front of the work of Richard Long, White Water Line, is an example of how some educators encourage visitors to speculate on the meaning of the artist’s formal, procedural and material choices, a way to take into account artistic intention also defended by Tate Modern’s artist educator Michaela Ross (Ross et al. 2004). The original piece … when he made this … it wasn’t paint. He used white clay that he found somewhere west of the country. He was walking and he found … he came across white clay, which he mixed with water and he made this out of it. Why do you think he used white clay? Why not use paint or lacquer? Why use a natural thing? (Mary) It has been interesting to observe that this approach reveals differences in the strategy used for comprehension of the works of art, which depends on whether one is dealing with historic or contemporary art. Jane, for example, considers understanding the author’s intentions to be particularly relevant when interpreting
non-figurative or contemporary art: [Discussing the necessity of talking about the artist’s intention in the educational activities] It is just a part of it. Then, you know, I guess that it is more relevant in contemporary art. If you are looking at a nineteenth-century landscape, the artist might have painted it in a particular way, but then you might also want to think about who commissioned it and what they wanted to say about their idea of the land or… (Jane) Along these same lines, Marc thinks that the nature of the information provided during gallery activities differs depending on the artwork's style and code: [Discussing the differences between working with traditional art and contemporary art] You probably use more sort of narrative, historical factual stuff about the old stuff and more kind of analytical, about the materials and techniques with the new ones. But there is still both, there is still factual stuff that can be discussed with both. (Marc) Therefore, and especially with reference to nonfigurative art, we find that the strategies for interpretation lead to the analysis of the resources for communication through which the works of art formalise and transmit ideas, feelings or emotions. As Marc suggests in the previous quotation, when the work of art does not clearly tell the story, the act of interpretation turns toward the analysis of its formal, material, technical or process-based aspects, thus prioritising the layer of meaning derived from the formal and compositional order of the work of art. When educators understand works of art as an intellectual fact and interpretation as an opportunity for critical reflection Interviews carried out with educators have also revealed the existence of a third concept of art and interpretation that guides their practice. In this case, art is conceived as something to which we are linked through reflection, acting as a kind of thought detonator (Greene 2000). This
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is the concept that is more prevalent in the responses educators gave to the interview questions. Perhaps this is the reason why the conclusions mentioned in this section concur, to a great extent, with the ones Emily Pringle (2009) presented in her study [8] and with the opinions expressed by Tate Modern’s artist educator Michaela Ross in a published interview (Ross et al. 2004). This concept of art as an intellectual task definitively relegates to secondary status explanations that are based on sensory experience and grounded in the work of art’s formal appearance, and benefits art’s conceptual aspects. The educational foundations of this model can be linked to an understanding of the learning process as one in which the learner actively constructs knowledge (Falk & Dierking 2000; Hein 1998), which promotes teaching strategies that favour this participatory attitude toward the interpretation processes: [Discussing the role of the educator in educational activities] Sort of provide them with some tools to develop their own critical thinking. And encourage them to trust that they can respond to art, and think about art, and develop ideas about art, and their own art, by giving them a certain framework to, and also just introducing to the gallery, making them feel comfortable, interested. (Laura) We found in the interviews several opinions in which educational practice is not conceived as an action designed to convey preconstructed meanings. Rather, the goal is to guide learners to construct their own personal response, with questions like ‘What does it make you think of?’ Likewise, this approach toward the interpretation of art is founded on another guiding principle characteristic of this model: the fundamental idea that there is no fixed relationship between signifier and signified (Barthes 1957/1992). Tate's Ways In framework, responds to this principle and fosters interpretation processes that renounce the search for keys to a correct meaning, instead accepting all possible mean-
ings as interesting, including those contributed by the learner. It thus demonstrates its agreement with a critical vision, as defended by different researchers on museum education, which suggests that in educational activities, no specific voice should be privileged, and authority in the construction of meanings should be shared (Barrett 2000; Hubard 2007; Lachapelle et al. 2003; Meszaros 2007). These ideas are suggested in the following opinions of educators who work in the gallery: [Referring to the Ways In framework] I think it works really well, because it does not privilege the art historian, it does not privilege anybody. (Laura) [Discussing the necessity of talking about the artist’s intention in the educational activities] It is just the whole experience, of just looking and thinking, rather than right or wrong. It doesn’t matter. (Mary) Contrary to formalist viewpoints that understand art from a completely endogenous perspective, from this position art is conceived as integrated in and related to a much wider socio-cultural framework. If you only look at the art and the making, that is only a very formal one. I mean, I find it rather boring. It is an element on it, and you need to understand how the work is structured to communicate in a way that it does. But it is much wider the debate. It touches on a whole range of different subjects: the history, the geography… You can have different interpretations of all the different subjects that it touches. (Jane) This stragegy of relating the work to a specific topic is used in the following educational activity led by Jane, who responds to the request to use the tour to introduce the characteristics of Romanticism to a school group. This is how the educator initiates the tour in this case: One of the things about Romanticism is that we
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find a very different attitude to representing the natural world and nature. Looking at these two images … I’d like you to compare the vision of nature in this image, and the vision of nature in Turner’s image. Because it is very much the key to the nature of Romanticism. (Jane) From this concept, during the act of interpretation, any information that may be gathered about the work of art is considered as relevant as the artwork itself. Thus, some educators propose the need to introduce complementary information that may be related to the contextual setting of the artwork’s creation, the meaning proposed by the artist or the opinions of experts. Because you are an art historian, you built that knowledge about questions and issues that you are involved in. It is not like we don’t know anything about art. If someone that doesn’t know anything would look at the paintings wouldn’t necessarily get the questions to ask. Because you are relating it to a whole range of different things you happen to know about. All sorts of debates and discussions that might not even be on a wall text but you are also fitting them into something you want to ask. (Jane) Coinciding with the ideas of researchers like Meszaros (2007), Hubard (2007) and Lankford (2002), these educators believe that the dialogue between meanings contributed by visitors and those belonging to other cultural traditions make it possible to construct richer and more meaningful relationships with art. The key to this interpretative perspective is the dialogue between a diversity of opinions and information. This is stated by some educators, who make it clear that what they intend through this type of activity is to move away from transmissive practices that use information as a resource that provides ‘enlightenment’ about meaning more than as a problematising element that seeks a richer and more complex interpretation: We are not here to provide facts about the art […]
our job is not to just stand there and explain out what we know about the history of the piece, about the artist or the techniques used. (Laura) But, I mean, sometimes the expectations I feel from the school, they are expecting something that is art historical or that has already been in a textbook and, I mean, I don’t like doing that. (Mary) Some educators propose a different approach to address the interpretation of historical art and contemporary art, which highlights a paradox: art that is culturally closer to us requires more information. Ironically, even if modern art is supposed to be reflecting a contemporary view of the world, it needs more explanation than the historical because you have to communicate much more background information. It is more difficult for them to pull out readings. (Jane) When educators understand works of art as a materialisation or condensate of experience and interpretation as an opportunity for self-development Across the diverse concepts of art and interpretation presented thus far, a shift from a perceptual to a conceptual approach to artwork can be observed. In addition to this conceptual shift, we point out the existence of another shift in the protagonism of the act of interpretation from the work of art toward the learner. This occurs in those moments of the interviews in which the educators referred to art as an event useful for resignifying our world and our own experiences. From this perspective, which fuses art and life, a work of art would be something more than a message or an opportunity for reflection; it would be considered the condensate or materialisation of the artist’s experience and interpretation as an opportunity to interweave this experience with the personal, social and cultural circumstances that the spectators bring (Dewey 1934; Shusterman 1992). We have likewise observed that this concept
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of art conditions the educational objectives and practices of interpretation because it rejects basing these upon permanent aesthetic values or preset meanings. On the one hand, as some educators explained, the goal of the educational actions is to seek the emergence of this crossing and the personal implications of the learner by appealing directly to his or her experience.
inventing something and then you can talk about inventions, and you can talk about what invention you might make a fortune out of today. You might give a little bit of information, but you need to make the bit of information stick by talking about it in a larger way and if not, it is not going to mean anything to them. So you want to relate it to something in their experience that will mean something, so then they will remember it. (Jane)
[Discussing the necessity of talking about the artist’s intention in the educational activities] And part of the joy of it is to make your own interpretation, your own links, what it reminds you of. (Laura)
In this way, as Jane points out, the act of interpretation would be similar to searching for that part of us that can be found in the experience that is condensed in the work of art:
This idea of focusing on the personal contribution of learners in educational activities was also detected by Pringle (2009) in her interviews with the artists-educators of Tate Modern and in the previously referenced interview to Michaela Ross (Ross et al. 2004). This is a logical coincidence because it is one of the most significant contributions of the Ways In framework to the field of interpretation in museum education. On the other hand, this idea of art entails the understanding of a work of art that does not consist of deciphering the code that reveals the message or in facing the artwork from one’s previous conceptions and thoughts. The learner’s experience acts as a filter through which the approach to other aspects of the work of art must pass. As one educator suggests, it is an opportunity to provide information to inspire this next encounter. However, to select this information and the way of presenting it, the educator must start from the principle that his or her role is to relate this information to the spectator’s experiences and interests, thus avoiding transmissive practices: You have to make the information relevant. We are giving pieces of information and they don’t remember them. You might say: ‘That is a picture, a portrait of …’ And you can give a bit of information like: ‘This is a man who made his fortune making china.’ But then, you can also think about what it is to make a fortune out of
[Discussing the role of the educator in educational activities] It is about looking but it is also about making it relevant, bringing those things [artworks] to life, getting them to think of those things out of a conversation and it doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t relate to you and your personal experience. Trying to get them to see that there are things in those works that mean something, that connect to their experience and so that it is not threatening. (Jane) A work of art, therefore, is not conceived as something about which the learner must speculate, but rather something within which the learner is present. For those who understand art in these terms, this engagement is the ultimate purpose of the act of mediation. The personal contribution is no longer just a reaction to a physical stimulus or an immediate response to a first impression, but rather the result of an integrated action in which senses, information and thoughts are articulated with one’s own experience to give way to the performative educational act (Aguirre 2004; Greene 2000; Van Moer et al. 2008). The act of interpretation becomes an educational act because it favours what Greene (2000) refers to as ‘releasing the imagination’ and empathising with perspectives or experiences different from our own. It also provokes mechanisms for self-reflection and self-affirmation about who we are, which are easily derivable from what Rancière (2008/2009) calls processes
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of aesthetic subjectivation. All of this contributes to give this interpretation model a formative dimension and a capacity to intervene in the construction of one's identity, which makes it of particular interest for education. However, these ideas or stances, which are especially interesting and enlightening from an educational point of view, are barely present in the educational activities observed and in the discourses of the educators. In fact, we have come across very few fragments in which educators have exemplified how they develop educational experiences linked to this idea. In some cases personal implication is sought by appealing to experiences that have a heavy emotional component: [Discussing whether didactic strategies are different depending on the age of the learner] You may talk about fear to children, but actually, if you only give sort of the theory to the adults, the philosophy, they will think ‘Oh! This is boring stuff’. But if you relate that to fear, so … In a sense, you can do the same things, but do it in a different way. (Jane) Occasionally, we have also seen that the interpretative process is not exclusively limited to the expression of mere personal associations or memories. From the point of view held by Jane, and in agreement with some gallery education professionals (Meszaros 2007) and with Tate’s own philosophy (Charman & Ross 2006; Charman et al.2006), the contribution made by the visitor should not only be purely spontaneous or thoughtless; that contribution must also be the point of departure for working on other issues or aspects that the work of art arouses: [Explaining how she conceives the learner’s contribution] It is not just ‘What do you think about this?’ and you are just talking about their responses. You are using it as an initial part. Then you are thinking about, well, obviously the subject is important, so it is like, ‘What is your response to the subject?, What were you thinking?, Why do you think the artist painted this subject in this way?, What does it mean?, How
does it make you feel?’ […] When I say, ‘bringing it to life’ I don’t mean it is purely their subjective responses. (Jane) In addition to this way of engaging the learner with the work of art, in other cases we have come across proposals that appeal to the implication of cultural experiences: [Explaining the kind of questions she would ask in front of a work of art] Why might have you done this one hundred years ago when people felt differently about going on journeys? […] It is also about making the past relevant and meaningful so it’s also about relating the past to the present and realising that the past is different but there are also links between the past and the present. I mean, that is another thing that comes out: recognising that our culture now is profoundly different to the historical past but that there are also links and similarities. (Jane) This approach that seeks to relate the artwork with the life experience of the learner is conceived, in some cases, as a more complex process of interpretation that interweaves all the different approaches explained throughout this article: I think the idea of putting it in context, what I mean when I say bringing it to life, it is not just to do with looking. You are using their looking to relate to the context, to relate it to meaning, to relate it to their experience, to get them to understand why that was done in that way. (Jane) Conclusions A detailed analysis of interviews carried out with educators from Tate Britain has allowed us to understand the concepts that guide their educational practices. From this analysis, we can conclude that within these discourses coexist different narratives about the idea of art and the idea of interpretation. Some of these concepts are complementary, while others may even be contradictory, but they frequently appear intertwined, whether deliberately or unconsciously. As a result, we may assert that despite the
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fact that Tate Britain has a complete and solid educational programme that is difficult to find in other museums, a diversity of viewpoints and criteria are characteristic of the discourse developed by the educators working in that institution. This is possibly more positive than negative, but the purpose of our study has not been to judge the criteria and concepts that underlie the discourse, much less to judge the educators. Rather, our intention has been to reveal these concepts in the hopes that the debate that this analysis may produce will be enriching for Tate Britain and for all institutions and educators that have yet to reflect on the concepts of art that shape interpretative practices and educational acts in art museums. This intention is based on the idea that it is important for educators and education departments of museums to pay attention to the different concepts of art and interpretation underlying their educational discourses and practices. In this way, they will raise awareness about the meaning and scope of the educational processes that are implemented in their projects and activities. Notes 1. In British museums and galleries, the word ‘interpretation’ is used to describe the information resources that support an exhibition. Instead, we use the word ‘interpretation’ to indicate the strategies, processes and characteristics of meaning making used by individuals or institutions in front of works of art; that is, in the same way the word is used in the context of art philosophy, art criticism or hermeneutics. 2. This study is part of a wider investigation analysing how different agents involved in school programmes at Tate Britain conceive art and interpretation. Although this wider investigation involves the observation and analysis of educational activities, in this article we focus on educators’ ‘opinions’ expressed in interviews. We take this approach because we believe that it is important to focus on how they view their work and to what extent they are aware of the underlying conceptions. It is not our intention to
compare their ideas with their practice or to analyse the educational activities; however, we will refer to some of these cases when they help illustrate the analysis. 3. The Ways In framework presents four perspectives from which to approach the interpretation of works of art: (1) ‘A personal approach – What do I/ We bring?’; (2) ‘Ways in to the object – The presence of the work’; (3) ‘Ways in to the subject – What is it about?’; (4) ‘Ways in to the context – Relating the artwork to the wider world’. 4. Educators have been given fictitious names to guarantee their anonymity and confidentiality (Strike 2006) throughout the research study. 5. All interviews were transcribed to maintain their literality. Therefore, the fragments quoted in this article contain expressions and grammatical errors typical of the colloquial language. 6. These ideas may be in line with educational methods that propose approaching works of art without introducing any information to avoid ‘contaminating’ or ‘guiding’ the learner during the construction of meaning. One such proposal that has been most influential at the international level is Visual Thinking Strategies. 7. The Ways In framework also presents a series of questions under the titles ‘Message’ and ‘Content’, based on the idea that works of art communicate and tell us things. These expressions seem to suggest the existence of meaning intrinsic to the works, as if it were ‘embodied’ in them. Nevertheless, the questions proposed under those titles do not seem to suggest exactly that. 8. Emily Pringle (2009), after interviewing and observing a group of artist educators working at Tate Modern, explains that these educators accept the idea that plural interpretation of works of art are valid and that they try to help learners to interpret art for themselves through activities that emphasise group dialogue. In this way, educators see themselves as facilitators
iJADE 32.1 (2013) © 2013 The Authors. iJADE © 2013 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
whose goal is to help learners be active makers of meaning. Amaia Arriaga has a PhD from the Public University of Navarra for a 2009 thesis on ‘Conceptions of art and interpretation in educational discourses and practices at Tate Britain in London’. His professional experience has been developed in the departments of education of various museums and since 2004 he has worked as a teacher and researcher at the Public University of Navarra. Contact address: Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Public University of Navarra, Arrosadia Campus, 31006 Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. Email: amaia.
[email protected] Imanol Aguirre has a PhD from the University of the Basque Country. He is currently Professor of Art Education in the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy at the Public University of Navarra. He is the author of works such as Teorías y prácticas en educación artística. Ensayo para una revisión pragmatista de la experiencia estética en educación. Contact address: Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Public University of Navarra, Arrosadia Campus, 31006 Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. Email:
[email protected]
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