UTOPIA AND EVERYDAY LIFE: BETWEEN ART AND EDUCATION

The summer exhibition explores the overarching question of what role artists can play in the educational process, both within and outside institutions. Through art projects conceived specifically for the exhibition, the museum becomes a laboratory in which alternatives to conventional, passive knowledge transfer are tested, and the traditional pupil-teacher relationship is re-examined and reimagined.

The exhibition is underpinned by the conviction that art education must support not only engagement with, but also active participation in, culture. To this end, the participating artists collaborate both in the run-up to and during the exhibition with various groups based in Thun and the surrounding region: a nursery school, residents of a care home, blind people and secondary school pupils are involved in the projects. Various elements within the exhibition, such as a discussion space, a ‘making-of’ room and guided tours in dialogue, further support the process-oriented and participatory nature of the exhibition project.

Artists featured in the exhibition:
Hanswalter Graf, Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler, Kristina Leko, Valerian Maly and Klara Schilliger, Nils Norman and Tilo Steireif, Regine von Felten

The idea and initial concept originated at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, where the results were on display in the exhibition Utopie et Quotidienneté until the end of March 2010. The Kunstmuseum Thun adopted the idea and themes and implemented them with other artists and local groups.