Artist as Educator: Vivian Wong

I generally see the institution of education as an impersonal political structure with infinite invisibly fixed power relations. The curriculum, student-teacher dynamic, and social interactions all seem inalterable and handed down from an antiquated, oppressive system. I feel like I have been paralyzed by the formality of institutional education for most of my academic career. The generalization of students' needs, lack of intimacy, and emphasis on quantifiable results create an environment of distrust and exclusion. Students are discouraged from sharing and instead must negotiate a hierarchical system of school politics. The educational institution can be seen as a body, and I try to negotiate relations between this monolithic panopticon with my own small singular body. The nonsymmetrical relationship establishes a barricade separating the interior from the exterior, and I must constantly find ways to navigate from my position of exclusion to a state of incorporation within the system. But this exclusion subsequently provokes interesting acts of sabotage.

On this note, I also see artists as self educators. They are able to recombine and recontextualize existing discplines to generate new fields of study. Artists are cross-discinplinary educators who not only value objective knowledge but experiential/observational explorations as well. Modes of production are not restricted to verbal/written communication and include visual, performative, and physical/material forms of expression. Artists provide an encompassing curriculum that encourages learning outside of traditional moral, political, social, etc. boundaries. I think artists as educators have both the freedom and responsibility to propose new relations and meaning within current institutionalized structures of authority, even if it means engaging in acts of subversion. Perhaps they can fracture the omnipresent panopticon of education and distribute the power of the gaze among the student body.