KAMPALA WORKING GROUP UPDATE #2 (AUGUST 2017): DESIGNING A LEARNING UNIT

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 16:11:33 +0000

The Nagenda International Academy of Art & Design (NIAAD) in Namulanda generously permitted the Kampala Working Group to convene on its premises for an intensive workshop during the semester break in July 2017.

At the outset Kitto and I reaffirmed our wish to use Trowell’s 1960 book African Design as the starting point for our 2017/2018 learning unit, and we agreed that:

we wish to develop and test the learning unit by working with students at NIAAD
the learning unit has to be designed in such a way as not to increase the workloads of either Kitto or his students in any way - as far as is possible; and
the delivery of the new learning unit should require as little as possible in terms of additional physical teaching and learning resources from the points of view of Kitto or his students.

Kitt and I are very fortunate that Andrea Thal (Cairo Working Group) introduced us to Training for Exploitation? Politicising Employability and Reclaiming Education - a resource- and workbook that was published in the UK this year by the Precarious Workers Brigade.

Although written from a British perspective and ostensibly for a British audience, the book succinctly articulates, in a reasonably universal way, many of the challenges/pressures that the 21st century neoliberal economy poses for/imposes upon those of us who are committed emancipatory arts educational practices. It further proposes practical strategies that educators and students can use to confront, counteract and overcome them.

After much discussion and debate, Kitto and I agreed that:

with the consent of NIAAD senior management, in the first instance, we would only focus our efforts on reworking the year one semester one course entitled “Introduction to Graphic Design” with what we today choose to term “expanded historically-grounded critical content”. We would commit ourselves to reworking the content of other courses only at a later stage.
our respective experiences of the Decolonizing Art Education project indicate that we need to devote considerable time to imparting to students the kinds of critical thinking and analytical skills and knowledges that we feel they need in order to complete our desired learning unit.

Therefore we have decided to formally introduce Trowell’s African Design in the next semester (starting February 2018), and instead focus our efforts during the upcoming semester on supporting students in acquiring the skills we feel they need to conduct the research programme we are developing.

We have devoted considerable energy to trying to identify the most effective and generative ‘entry points’ for the participant student/researchers. Our current strategy is to build on the lively and heated discussions that Kitto has already initiated within the school around what might be said to constitute the “Africanness” of African Art or African Design.

We shall also be drawing upon activities and work plans that Carmen Moersch and I created for the first distance learning phase of the staff and curriculum development programme “Decolonizing Art Education”, with which Kitto already has a level of familiarity - in particular the activities relating to John Berger’s television series and book Ways of Seeing (1972) and Stuart Hall’s Open University textbook Representation: Cultural Representations & Signifying Practices (1997).

KAMPALA WORKING GROUP UPDATE #1 (APRIL 2017): AFRICAN DESIGN

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 15:39:47 +0000

Towards the end of 2016, following the meeting of the Intertwining Hi/Stories Cluster in São Paolo, Kitto Derrick Wintergreen joined the Kampala Working Group of the Another Roadmap School.

A graduate of the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art at Makerere University in Kampala, Kitto is currently Acting Head of the Fine Art Department at Nagenda International Academy of Art and Design (NIAAD) in Namulanda – Uganda, where he also teaches certificate and diploma courses in visual communication design and weaving.

Kitto had been first a participant in and later the coordinator of ‘Decolonizing Art Education’ - a two-year staff and curriculum development project at NIAAD that had been created and facilitated by Carmen Moersch (Zurich Working Group), Rangoato Hlasane (Johannesburg Working Group), George Shire (Harare Working Group) and myself.

Over the time that we have worked together, Kitto has come to share my belief that a more critical and discursively informed understanding of Margaret Trowell’s teaching and her legacy is essential if art and design education in Uganda is to become more relevant and empowering in the longer term.*

Therefore as a working group, we agreed to adopt, as our initial goal, the research and development of strategies for integrating the research I have been doing into Trowell’s work into the contemporary curriculum at NIAAD.

We identified Trowell’s work on design as our shared point of entry for two reasons:

it is the area into which I have so far personally done the least research; and
it is what Kitto currently teaches.

Our starting point is Margaret Trowell’s book, African Design (covers of first and current editions pictured).

First appearing in 1960, two years after Trowell’s retirement from the School of Art at Makerere University, this was one of the first books ever to be published on the topic of design in Africa, and sadly continues to be one of the only ones.

As an initial step, Kitto and I agreed:

to examine Trowell’s terminology and to trace its evolution, looking particularly at her use of the words ‘design’, ‘craft’, ’handwork’ and ‘decoration’ and at the relationships she draws between them
to consider the similarities, differences and connections between Trowell’s concepts of 'African Art' and 'African Design' and between her approaches to teaching them.

We have decided to use the opportunity to develop a learning unit currently afforded us by our participation in the Intertwining Hi/stories Cluster to try to find ways to introduce Trowell’s book into the design curriculum at NIAAD, and to use it as a springboard not only for further discussion and debate but for the development of Kitto’s students’ practical design skills.

Written by Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa

*For more information, see 'Synthetic Authenticity' (our 2012 research outline) and "Margaret Trowell's School of Art: A Case Study in Colonial Subject Formation".

Kampala's contents tagged with "Design"

KAMPALA WORKING GROUP UPDATE #2 (AUGUST 2017): DESIGNING A LEARNING UNIT

KAMPALA WORKING GROUP UPDATE #1 (APRIL 2017): AFRICAN DESIGN