Many of our students are interested in the notion of the spiritual in art. This can be linked to questions of the contemporary sublime or transcendence, associated with the work of artists such as Mark Rothko or James Turrell. For some, art making is thought of as a meditative practice, a process of emptying out, of quiet, controlled or repetitive actions, inspired by an artist such as Agnes Martin, who developed her practice from ideas rooted in Zen Buddhist and American Transcendentalism.
Often, students that have been schooled initially in art colleges in South East Asia place Buddhist or Taoist thought at the centre of their research. After taking part in a panel discussion on approaches to pedagogy in higher education at an international conference on drawing practice at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China in 2017, I have a better understanding of why this is so, since Buddhist and Taoist philosophy (as well as Confucianism) underpinned the teaching of many of the Chinese academics in attendance.
Faith has rarely played a central role in the debates and critical conversations that take place in many UK art schools (at least in my experience). In his book and lecture, ‘On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art’ (2004), the American historian and art critic James Elkins describes his concern that within (largely secular) art colleges, students who are addressing faith in their practice, are not getting meaningful critical feedback on the religious meaning of their work, because teaching staff are often scared of saying the wrong thing. He adds: “students are not taught how religious ideas are expressed.”
Within the course that I teach, students have often explored their faith through their work. There is the student who is currently exploring the Taoist concept of ‘wu wei’ (do nothing) with reference to ancient Taoist texts. There is the recent graduate whose Christian faith is defined by practice and community and whose reflective writing on identity addressed the intersectional characteristics of religion, gender and race. There was the student from China who admitted in the last months of the course that she wanted to make paintings about her Christian faith. Another graduate, Alastair Gordon, developed a book – ‘God Art: Signs of Faith in Contemporary Art’ (2017) – from his final Masters research essay. He has proved to be a generous source of knowledge and a support for many others that have come in his wake.
The perceived dogmatic nature of faith can be challenging. The UAL Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching website contains a Radio 4 interview with artist Mohamed Ali (27.01.17) in which he expresses his ambivalence to the term ‘religious art’ because it implies preaching or prophesying. Instead, he says his work simply asks questions for us to reflect upon about universal values such as justice, freedom, peace, perseverance and “the spiritual reliance on a divine creator.” In one of the website’s case studies, ‘Travelling Cultures’, Steve Cross acknowledges that developing criticality in the work of students who are exploring issues related to faith can be challenging since “faith identity is about a person’s deep-seated beliefs.” But he also finds that students respond positively to feedback that supports the development of the analytical and theoretical aspects of their research.
Although I was aware of a range of texts that support artists of faith (from ‘Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art’ by Mary Jane Jacob and Jacquelynn Baas to Aaron Rosen’s ‘Art & Religion in the 21st Century), the Religion, Belief and Faith Identities website provides a range of other welcome resources. I also found Steve Cross’ account of the personal essay project in the Travelling Cultures unit on BA Media and Cultural Studies, LCC, inspiring and this is an approach that I may adapt for my own course. Cross says that students are encouraged to “reflect on the notion of culture and identity as fluid, as opposed to a fixed, stable entity.” Asking students to acknowledge their own positionalities in relation to their research now seems like good practice to me. A project like this can also foster safe spaces where students can discuss faith and its intersectional complexities with confidence and criticality. We already run student-led seminars and a project like this, which encourages student reflection on identity and culture, can create the agendas for these critical forums in the future.