Cortocircuiti. Educare a una cittadinanza plurale attraverso l’arte contemporanea

Training course for second-grade secondary school teachers

The Pirelli HangarBicocca Educational Department and Fondazione ISMU—Initiatives and Studies on Multi-ethnicity presented a training course for second-grade secondary school teachers, entitled Cortocircuiti. Educare a una cittadinanza plurale attraverso l’arte contemporanea (Short-circuits: Educating towards Inclusive Citizenship through Contemporary Art)

The course consisted of five meetings:

• The first one examined heritage education from an intercultural perspective, as a transformative approach that encourages interaction, exchange, the questioning of one’s own knowledge and cultural certainties, the formulation of different interpretations of the world we live in, and the acknowledgement of our own multiple identities.
• In the second one, the teachers were given a digital guided tour of the exhibition “Short-circuits” by the artist Chen Zhen, which revolved around the concept of transexperiences: the artist himself described this is the experience one has “when one leaves the land where one was born and one moves from one place to another”, but also, in more general terms, “the fact of immersing oneself in life, blending into it and identifying with others.”
• The third and fourth meetings were devoted to the participatory planning of courses in class groups, based on the knowledge and skill sets acquired in the previous meetings, as well as on the teachers’ previous experiences.
• The fifth and final meeting consisted of a discussion on the results achieved.

The themes of the exhibition, which also include reflections on apparently contradictory ideas and states (tradition and modernity, centre and periphery, spirituality and consumerism), help foster greater understanding of a variety of disciplines, in addition to that of art history. After the presentation of the project twenty teachers were selected.

Calendar of events:

• Wednesday 18 November 2020, 6 PM
  Meeting to present the Cortocircuiti. Educare a una cittadinanza plurale attraverso l’arte contemporanea training course, open to all teachers who may be interested.
• Saturday 12 December 2020, 2.30—5.30 PM
  1st module: introduction to heritage education from an intercultural perspective
• Saturday 9 January 2021, 2.30—5.30 PM
  2nd module: digital guided tour of the temporary exhibition “Short-circuits” by Chen Zhen
• Wednesday 20 and Wednesday 27 January 2021, 5—8 PM
  3rd module: 2 meetings on participatory planning
• Wednesday 3 February 2021, 5—6.30 PM
  4th module: discussion and assessment of the results achieved