NoVA - The Case of Revitalising Making on the Master Level

We review the four-year-old master’s (graduate) Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education (NoVA) programme aimed at equipping students with competencies and pedagogical interaction skills for working in cross-cultural and international educational situations and environments (Tavin & Kallio-Tavin, 2015). Nordic democratic societies demand participatory and collaborative teaching methods and didactics, particularly practices and knowledge in art education and visual communication. Teaching digital technologies, NoVA emphasises agency, user focus, quality, commitment, and democracy. Three universities operate NoVA: Aalto University, Finland; Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts, and Design, Stockholm; and Aalborg University, Copenhagen. We discuss how the different perspectives on interventional approaches to working with art in three courses at these institutions challenge and help students re-locate themselves as becoming-students in each learning situation. We give examples of alumni’s projects and professional engagements. The university partners’ courses create a unique combination of making in graduate art education: Aalborg: Visual digital learning through manipulating places and interventions in urban environments (Buhl & Ejsing-Duun, 2015) Konstfack: Investigating learning and meaning-making with visual and performative ethnography and explorative discourse analysis Aalto: Deep pedagogical engagement with critical social theory and community practices. Finally, we discuss the current and future purpose and need for joint international graduate art education. Buhl, M., & Ejsing-Duun, S. (2015). Blended learning promoting new developments for Nordic master programs in visual studies and art education. In A. Jeffries & M. Cubric (Eds), the 14th European Conference on E-learning Proceedings ECEL, 29–31 October 2015, Hatfield. (p. 100-107), Hatfield, UK: Academic Conferences and Publishing International. Tavin, K., & Kallio-Tavin, M. (2015). The educational frameworks of NoVA: collaborative master studies/master programme, Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education. Education changing institutions. Draft catalogue. Oslo, Norway: Oslo and Akerhus University College