Art Education as a Participatory Art Process

In contemporary art education particular attention should be given to transferring the creative process involved in art-making to the creative process used in teaching, such that each student's innate creativity is encouraged. Therefore, is suggested participatory art, as a one of the ways of developing creativity inherent in every person. Stimulation of creativity leads to self-realization, so the person manages personal connections and practical skills and participates in the life of the community. This way, a conscious and independent person in formed, ready to restructure social relations, take the initiative and solve problems. Participatory art, as a part of the contemporary visual art, is using forms of artwork to create and shape everyday life, thus moving from aesthetics to ethics. This is a transformative act with the emphasis on creativity as a means of personal transformation (Anderson at al., 2010). One of possible ways to integrate such an art into society is by implementing it in art education on elementary, secondary and tertiary level. This way particular attention is paid to the persons in the context and their ideas, attitudes and emotions, constructing meaning through art. Art education, which includes such an ethical-aesthetic component of art (Dewey, 1902, 2013), can enable a complete development of the student and lay the foundations for the further development of the student's cognitive, emotional and psychological traits. Other features of contemporary visual art that can be linked to the process of art education created as a participatory art project are interdisciplinarity, collaboration, use of new media and communication technologies, performative learning, a research approach, goal setting, processual and participatory aspect, play, visual culture as contemporary context, creating new relationships and stimulating multiple senses at the same time. Such an art education relies on the teacher who should be artist himself/herself (Craft, 1997) because teaching is an art form (Robinson and Aronika, 2015, 2016), creation of new personalities.