In a time when the greater portion of knowledge production takes place in the visual sphere, when words such as “design process” and “creative processes” flourish diligently, when digital media belong to our most common communication media, when contemporary artists participate in the debate about ethnicity, class and gender – in this context, I see our newly graduated teachers as being some of society’s key players.

A task as important as educating children and young people for our contemporary times involves, in particular, giving them the tools to express themselves, their opinions and dreams, which is also a democratic right.

Arts, visual culture and learning are key concepts of the Konstfack Teacher Education programme. The teachers from the Department of Visual Arts and Sloyd Education who graduate this spring have spent the past five years training to become teachers within art, media and design. It is this pedagogical approach that guides our program. One fundamental idea is that the combination of theoretical and practical work engenders more profound knowledge. An individual who has mastery of several forms of knowledge acquires the capacity for more varied and nuanced expression. This is what we call working from a “double perspective”, which means that the students’ degree projects result in an academic thesis and a visual form. In conjunction with the Degree Exhibition, the public will only encounter a part of the great work which until now, the students have put into their independent work in the visual arts, which is the official name for our students’ degree projects.

Anette Göthlund, Professor of Visual Arts Education