The decolonial arts education research and practice group is an inter institutional and inclusive platform for artists, researchers and teachers engaged in higher education. We also invite and include interested parties from the field of practice, locally and globally. The research group is a location to collaborate and energise arts education in the Nordic region towards pluralistic understandings of art making, teaching, and scholarship. We specifically seek to do this through first reflecting together on definitions of decolonial and second expanding meanings of the relationship between decoloniality, art and arts education through topics such as ethics, whiteness and critical race theory, inclusion/exclusion, Nordic migration, Indigenous knowledges and methodologies, power positions and curriculum. We aim to always promote a safe and care focused atmosphere.

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Ongoing project 2022-2024

Practice of Decolonization: Transformation of artistic institutions and education in the Czech Republic and Norway

The starting point of the project is the issue of decolonization, which becomes increasingly dominant theme across Europe. We explore what actually means the concept of decolonization in the practical sense, if we deal with it in two different artistic educational institutions; in the Czech Republic and Norway. What are the conditions and assumptions for us to be able to talk about decolonization at all? We do not want to examine this issue on a theoretical level, but find its institutional. Work residency in Norway/ Czech Republic is part of our two-year project Regeneration supported by EEA and Norway Grants.

Events 2021/2022

Creating Community: (funded by NAFOL)

Speakers:

• "Incomplete" A conversation with: Julie Edel Hardenberg Visual Artist/Author/Educator from Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland
• "Silencing the Other" A conversation with: Dr Zahra Bayati Activist/Researcher/Educator based in Gothenburg
• "A collective reading" Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization" by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui; A Co-reading and conversation with: Nikhil Vettukattil Artist 

This is Community

In collaboration with NTNU SLS (Seksjon for læringsstøtte) funded by NAFOL. 
This is Community will provide insight into working with the practice of decolonizing our artistic practices.

Speakers:

• Raúl Alberto Mora Valez (Dr. Berry) Experimenting in the Studio
• Tuula Sharma Vassvik- Podcasting Low Fi & Hi-Fi, "Vuostildanfearánat - Sámi stories of resistance"
• Polina Golovátina & Amanda Fayant- Decolonizing the gaze Film Workshop & Screening 
• *film screening last ca 30mins
• Julie Edel Hardenberg- Identity and (post) Colonial perspectives in art practice
• Dr. Alexia Buono- Sensing, Feeling, and Moving as Anti-Colonial Praxis
• Dr. Patricia Scalco-Is there an elephant in the room? Exploratory exchanges on the dis/location and dis/embodiment of ‘whiteness’ in the Nordic region. A conversation with:, lawyer and a social anthropologist currently based in Finland

Coming this semester (2023): Creating Community continued

"The Four Directions that Guide and Teach us" An introduction and conversation about the four directions (the Medicine Wheel) and the multiplicities of relationships between research, knowledge and art production. Amanda Fayant Artist/Writer

"Ajmoejimh ajtoejimh - land, traces, past and future" Creating engagement and knowledge in Sami history and belonging through co-operation with schools. 
A conversation with: Sissel Mutale Bergh Artist