Nino's Classroom
 
How do artists legitimize their work in the scholarly realm of the academy? This is the question we have to answer as we formulate guidelines for creative works submitted for financial or institutional support.

Because whether we like it or not, artists are seen as intuitive rather than rational, subjective rather than objective, and so on. And so when we create something, our work is often considered as trivial or frivolous.

This is what Jan Svenungsson says in "The Writing Artist" (Art & Research, Vol. 2 No. 2 Spring 2009):
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Sinews of Syllables performance (Photo: JCAD)
"The scientist -- or scholar -- aims to establish knowledge which should be valid at least for a certain time, which can be shared and used as such, by others, whereas the artist strives to install in the viewer or reader an urge for further search, for further preoccupation with what there is. Of course, the artist wants to reach as many people as possible, but what will be shared between them is not really comparable, because they will interpret the task of further searching in as many different ways."

So it seems the twain shall never meet, at least in the academe. But that is what we'll try to merge -- with the aid of readings like the one above -- so that artists in the University will be given the same recognition as scholars.

Wish us luck.
 


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