Global Art Forum is Art Dubai’s critically-acclaimed annual transdisciplinary arts conference, which combines original thinking and contemporary themes in an intimate, live environment.
Following on from last year’s theme of automation, Global Art Forum 2019 unites a diverse cast of global minds – from renowned curators and critics to educationalists and entrepreneurs – under the theme of ‘School is a Factory?’ to address some of the urgent challenges and opportunities facing education today.
In the lead up the two-day summit, its co-directors Victoria Camblin and Fawz Kabra asked some of this year’s speakers a few fun questions on their unique educational paths, if school prepared them for real life and just how optimistic they are about the future of education.
Hotel Les Gorges du Dades, Boumalne, 1971-1972, architects : Faraoui and de Mazières, archives : Faraoui and de Mazières architects
Maud Houssais, independent researcher and curator, reflects on the qualities of standout teachers and what art school taught her:
Who was an important or formative teacher in your youth and what made them special?
During my school path, I had the chance to have met several art teachers who have been extremely important in the development of my career in art. Although encountered at different times in my life, from adolescence to young adulthood, these teachers all had one thing in common: to use transmission methods based on kindness. They put the learner at the heart of their teaching, using our personal and individual knowledge as the basis of their method.
Did school prepare you for “real life”? If not, what did?
Studying in art school that did not prepare me for working life. Centered on the personal practices of future artists, the school was more of a space stimulating self-learning than a place of institutional knowledge and vertical relationship between the teacher and the student. Although school did not prepare me for “real life” in terms of professional training, school gave me the most useful tool to face my professional life: to be in constant learning.
Painted ceiling, Mohamed Melehi, Hotel Les Roses du Dades, Kelaa M’Gouna, 1971-1972, architects : Faraoui and de Mazières, archives : Faraoui and de Mazières architects