In brief
ArtEZ University of the Arts is the first and only university of the arts in the Netherlands to hold a UNESCO Chair. This international recognition highlights the value of our research and education, and the role of the arts in building understanding between people and cultures.
What is a UNESCO Chair
A UNESCO Chair is an honor awarded to an institution to enable it to formally host and individual or team who are specifically dedicated to advancing knowledge related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG’s). The award also recognizes the existing commitment of individuals within the host institution who dedicate their research to promote a culture of peace and justice.
Through UNESCO’s UNITWIN network – the University Twinning and Networking Programme, which connects universities in 194 member states – UNESCO Chairs share research methods and projects to strengthen higher education worldwide.
Issues Based Arts Education (IBAE) – what it is and why at ArtEZ
IBAE is a problem-posing pedagogy that takes real issues drawn from the lived experiences of individuals or communities as the point of departure for learning. In this respect there is no pre-set theme or predetermined learning outcomes. The purpose of education is found in the questions and challenges of people, places and times. In this way, art and education are directly connected to urgencies of the world we live in.
The award from UNESCO recognises that this approach is already deeply rooted. Many of our artisteducator programmes and lectorates already engage with social issues and work closely with communities in the Netherlands and abroad. This makes ArtEZ a perfect environment for IBAE to grow and become more visible nationally and internationally.
IBAE invites us to see art as education and education as art. From this, the concept of the artisteducator emerges: a highly skilled professional who is forms two identities of artist and teacher into one – the artitseducator.
UNESCO Chair Centre for Arts and Learning (UCAL)
The UNESCO Chair at ArtEZ operates through the UNESCO Chair Centre for Arts and Learning (UCAL). UCAL is a research network with hubs in Arnhem (NL), Belfast and Dublin (Ireland), and Fes, Tanger and Casablanca (Morocco). Each hub works with local communities to explore what arts education can mean in its own context. Artists, students and researchers collaborate through creative dialogue and share experiences, methods and artistic processes.
UCAL uses practice-led research: an approach that, as Jean Paul Lederach (2010) describes, begins with lived experience and intuition rather than predefined problems. In this way, new knowledge grows from artistic practice and local engagement and can be shared across the international network.
Mission and values
The UNESCO Chair and UCAL team promote peacebuilding and conflict prevention through arts and education. Their work is guided by shared values: reciprocity, integrity, respect, humility, trust, transparency, equality, accountability, solidarity, care and self-reflection.
UCAL’s three-year programme focuses on showing how arts-based research can help build peace and social cohesion. The centre also offers staff, students and partners of ArtEZ a place to research, connect and act on these principles.
In this way, the Chair strengthens the social and educational value of the arts and enables ArtEZ to contribute to the international conversation on the future of arts education.
Collaborate or learn more
The UNESCO Chair is open to collaboration. Would you like to know more about Issues Based Arts Education or explore ways to participate? Contact us at unesco.chair@artez.nl