ART ± EDUCATION: the paradox of the ventriloquist’s soliloquy

When we speak of art education are we trying to make sense of something by means of something else, just as a ventriloquist speaks with the mouth of a puppet to make us believe that he is having a dialogue with someone else,when in effect he is speaking to himself? This paper discusses how art education could only flourish as an act of approximation as it rejects the incremental and constructivist assumptions that have turned art and education into transactional instruments. Discussing art and education’s immanent relationship, this paper argues that art education is only necessary by force of the accidents that characterise it. Four scenarios, here identified in what the author calls the paradox of the ventriloquist’s soliloquy in art education,illustrate this argument. In discussing how this comes about, this paper makes reference to HernerSaeverot’s concept of indirect pedagogy and Charles Garoian’s prosthetic pedagogy.