

Educating with Art

Art Strategy for an Educational Institution
Doha, Qatar

When a Qatari foundation was looking to expand their educational campus in Doha, Qatar with the addition of a Middle School, Auditorium, Education Offices and landscape plazas in 2015, they looked to Farmboy Fine Arts (FBFA) to develop a single stage invitational art selection process for three major public art installations.

I proposed that FBFA adopt the ‘Arts Integration’ approach to education to inform its selection criteria, shortlisting three foundation–approved artists per commission.

In the ‘Arts Integration’ approach to education and teaching, learning is achieved through the experience of art. By applying this principle to the art placements of the expansion, the institution can engage students, educators and community members by exposing them to creative processes that connect art forms with other subject areas.

For example, conceptual art is art where the ideas involved in the artwork are as important as the traditional aesthetic and material concerns. This art making process is an imaginative activity where research, examination, perception, exploration, experimentation, development, creation, reflection, assessment, revision and sharing are all involved. Within the context of the teaching and learning environment, these artworks become sites that are experiential, evolving, collaborative, and reflective.

Thus, by emphasizing and bringing exposure to contemporary art and the practices of conceptual artists,
participation with these artworks requires community members to draw on prior knowledge and engage in hands-on experiences. The artworks build an environment that encourages risk taking and the exploration of possibilities, and they arrange opportunities that nurture a social and cooperative learning community which is part of the foundation’s mandate.

AUDITORIUM LANDSCAPE PLAZA

AUDITORIUM GROUND FLOOR MAIN ENTRANCE LOBBY

MIDDLE SCHOOL MAIN ENTRANCE HALL

Proposal prepared for Farmboy Fine Arts while employed as Design Director.