Sustainable Development Goals, Art Education, and Interdisciplinarity: Building Pedagogical Futures
UNESCO Observatory E-Journal: Multi-disciplinary Research in the Arts, Volume 8, Issue 1.10 · Jun 1, 2022
This work explores how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) facilitate pedagogical imaginaries in art education. Schools and higher education institutions have increasingly adopted the SDGs to their curriculum or initiatives to follow 21st century skill development and sustainability trends in education; yet, how, where, and why should art fit into the picture? I elaborate on a collaborative video work involving education students from Concordia University and Hiroshima University to demonstrate methodologies for the future of art education and teaching sustainability. By reflecting on the experience of the project, I analyse how the group’s adoption of process-oriented, posthumanist, and globally applicable practices relates to education models in arts exposure, conversation as art, and arts integration; thus, laying a foundation to imagine an expanded and ever-evolving arts-SDG curriculum geared towards sustainability action.