Challenging Vision in Visual Arts in the South African Sociocultural Context

Autor/inn/en	Steyn, Raita; Sefotho, Maximus Monaheng
Titel	Challenging Vision in Visual Arts in the South African Sociocultural Context
Quelle	In: Perspectives in Education, 39 (2021) 4, S.187-201 (15 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Steyn, Raita) ORCID (Sefotho, Maximus Monaheng)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0258-2236
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Visual Arts; Vision; Painting (Visual Arts); Freehand Drawing; Sculpture; Visual Impairments; Inclusion; Art Education; Educational Innovation; Creative Thinking; Critical Thinking; Aesthetics; Higher Education; South Africa + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Optische Gestaltung; Malerei; Drawing; Zeichnen; Bildhauerei; Visual handicap; Sehbehinderung; Inklusion; Arts; Education; Art in Education; Kunst; Bildung; Erziehung; Instructional innovation; Bildungsinnovation; Kreatives Denken; Kritisches Denken; Ästhetik; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Südafrika; Süd-Afrika; Republik Südafrika; Südafrikanische Republik
Abstract	This conceptual article is anchored on critical phenomenology to challenge the monopolisation of visual arts by the sense of vision, thus depriving visually impaired people of aesthetic value beyond ordinary cognitive faculties. In this study, we discuss the forms of painting, drawing and sculpting defined as Visual Arts referring to appreciation only by vision; thus, excluding the visually impaired as unable to appreciate or create by sight. This exclusiveness has dominated and directed art aesthetics and ethics, allowing aesthetic criteria research projects and educational curricula to be established and, conventionally, maintain their static existence unchallenged. Furthermore, vision exclusiveness limits creative thinking and artistic inspiration. This article demonstrates the need and importance of broadening students' artistic conceptualisation of inclusiveness in Visual Arts by exploring three fields of humanities education, i.e., academic, educational and sociocultural. The article challenges established stereotypes by introducing innovative approaches and opening alternative channels of creative and critical thinking in higher art education. From a sociocultural viewpoint in the South African context, the analysis questions the validity of certain firmly rooted stereotypical concepts about art values and standards by encountering the visually unimpeded and impaired. While the research broadens students' artistic conceptualisation of inclusiveness in Visual Arts, it simultaneously promotes the concept of hephapreneurship (hepha+preneurship), a neologism inspired by the Greek god, Hephaestus, protector of arts and crafts, himself handicapped. The term does not draw attention to the inabilities of persons with visual impairment, but their creative abilities through encouragement and motivation. By direct and open exposure to the problem, the research promotes the importance of arts education as a challenging platform for interaction between two, by definition, opposed realities. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	University of the Free State Faculty of Education. P.O. Box 339, Bioemfontein 9300, South Africa. Tel: +27-51-401-2368; e-mail: PiE@ufs.ac.za; Web site: http://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pie/index
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01