KLAUS - Art Lab at and with Schools

In the 2016/2017 school year, the laboratory phase, rooms at two schools—the Alexander Coppel Comprehensive School in Solingen and the Sedanstraße Gymnasium in Wuppertal—were converted and equipped as studios. In the 2017/2018 school year, KLAUS was active at Ennepetal Secondary School and Lohmar Comprehensive School. The artists Magdalena von Rudy, Sabrina Azizi, Theresa Herzog, and Mona Kakanj worked on site as part of an artist-in-residence program in a lived studio setting. The studio was regularly open to all students and teachers. Everyone was invited to be inspired and surprised by the artists’ work and the available materials, and to become active themselves. In addition, a wide range of artistic projects were carried out at and with the schools in very different formats: artists, students, and teachers often worked together as part of lessons, but breaks, free periods, and after-school time were also used intensively by many students in the studio to implement their own ideas and try out new things.

Through this practical engagement with arts education in a dedicated studio within the school, the KLAUS art lab creates digital materials for high-quality cultural and arts education programs in schools—for example, tutorials, inputs, and impulses in the form of videos, photo series, and checklists. These were used and tested at additional schools during the 2017/2018 school year, the testing phase. After evaluating the experiences, the materials were made available online free of charge as guides and inspiration. In this way, the aim was to ensure sustainably that arts education in cooperation between teachers and artists could be made possible for all children and young people at school at a high qualitative level. Particularly important here is that schools can use these materials independently in the regular operation of teaching and the school program.

The “Art Lab at and with Schools” was accompanied academically throughout both the laboratory and transfer phases. The academic support focused on the quality of arts education. The aim was to develop quality aspects for arts education in practice, evaluate them both theoretically and from practice, and make them available in a practical and understandable way through didactic preparation in the development of materials.

… in the studios

• to offer students the opportunity to become familiar with artistic ways of working and thinking
• to create an open space for design and possibility for independent, self-directed, and non-evaluative artistic work in school
• to support students’ personal development and expand their means of expression (visual literacy, reception, and production)

… in the development and creation of the practice materials

• to identify, define, and present quality characteristics for cultural education
• to evaluate successful processes and methods of artistic work and present them in such a way that the resulting materials convey the essential criteria and make them transferable to other situations and design tasks
• to make the materials available online to all schools on a platform
• to provide a scientifically grounded review and evaluation of the processes and results

… in the overall project

• to establish cultural education at all schools and make it easier to implement
• to reach children and young people who have previously had no or little access to cultural education

Prof. Dr. Nicole Berner
Professor of Art and Design Didactics
University of Teacher Education at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (PH FHNW)

Sandra Jasper
Research Associate
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences

Linnet Elisabeth Oster
Research Associate
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences

Wida Rogh
Research Associate (March 2017 – May 2018)
University of Teacher Education at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (PH FHNW)

Prof. Diemut Schilling
Professor of Drawing and Printmaking
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences

Magdalena von Rudy
Artist

Mona Kakanj
Artist (2017/2018 school year)

Sabrina Azizi
Artistic Associate (2016/2017 school year)

Theresa Herzog
Artistic Associate (2016/2017 school year)