The Metacademy model or The Artist Thinker is a diagram for art education. It is the result of the research I gathered and analyzed about the unspoken connections between the institutions involved in the art world. The Metacadamy is a diagrammatic model emerging from a counterculture and aiming to empower the artist. This system proposes radical conversations about the often unspoken connections between the institutions involved in the art world (museums, galleries, government, media, art school). The model has been cited in publications such as the book Creating Cultural Capital (1), the journal Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis (2), and featured in Art Monthly magazine (3). The model draws from Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics and Institutional Critique concepts from authors such as Andrea Fraser. This Art Education project also informed the module Dialogue (4), a teaching space for BA Fine Art students that I implemented as an independent researcher and an associate lecturer, in 2009, with artist Hester Reeve and that we delivered until before the pandemic. The Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Sheffield Hallam University, funded the pilot in 2009.
1. Kuhlke, O., Schramme, A., Kooyman, R. Creating Cultural Capital: Cultural Entrepreneurship in Theory, Pedagogy and Practice. Ed. Eburon Academic. Pub. Netherlands. Series Pioneering Minds Worldwide. (2015). http://www.eburon.nl/creating_cultural_capital
2. Lubytė Elona, The Context for the Artist, UNESCO Cooperations, journal Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, Vilnius Art Academy, Lithuania (2014). Dr. Lubyté, UNESCO Chair for Culture Management and Culture Policy.–
3. Corris Michael, The Economy of Art, Art Monthly. 327 (June, 2009).
4. Dialogue sessions history
In 2008 I became an Associate lecturer in the Fine Art Department, Sheffield Hallam University, and an independent researcher. I showed my Metacademy research to artist Hester Reeve, who I met in the art school corridors as she taught as a BA tutor while I was doing my MA in Fine Art. Hester spoke to me about her experience with Bohmian Dialogue, and months later, after interesting conversations about both of our research and looking into how they would fit together, we implemented Dialogue. From 2008 until before the pandemic, we held sessions for Fine Art students, opening up a space for thinking critically and collectively as artists.
Helen Blejerman 