The Force of Art

Abstract

The main reason for writing this book stems from what I see as a persistent under-valuing of the educational force of art in education by governments around the world. In recent decades, in my country and others, the time allocated for art in schools has been cut significantly to allow greater emphasis upon what are often called the STEM subjects—including science, technology and mathematics—that are viewed as central for economic ambition and competition. Though the arts do make a significant contri- bution to economic performance in many countries, this book is not concerned with justifying the arts in education along such socio-economic lines. Rather, its aim is to formulate a more fundamental advocacy for art practice as an ethico-aesthetic and political process that has generative potential for producing new modes of becoming and new forms of coexistence. In other words, the force of art can take us beyond the human as is constituted into new modes of becoming.