SIX helped facilitate one leg of this summers Tanteo project that saw us hosting ten international artists within our community.

MilesKm is an on-going experimental practice driven research project exploring potential alternative structures within the arts, focusing on collaboration, exchange and learning. Participate in MilesKm’s alternative Art School, touring around the UK during July&August 2015. An opportunity to challenge the concept of the classroom, the role of the student and the teacher, whilst experimenting with different learning structures. Apply online http://www.mileskm.com // Deadline 5th Jan

In 2015 MilesKm will be creating a touring Art School, moving around the UK, challenging the concept of the classroom, the roles of the student and teacher, and experimenting with different learning structures.

WHAT IS TANTEO?

TANTEO aims create space for learning and knowledge sharing, a radical environment to stimulate creativity and the potential political power of art. An approach to education, a tanteo, (an approximation). The project is both an investigation into the nature of arts education and the role of collaboration in learning. An endeavor to force the limits of what constitutes a “School of Art”.

CONTEXT

Education is in crisis. Universities are becoming businesses, continuing the pervasive march towards a totally privatized experience. Access is being limited and the focus is being shifted away from rigorous and diverse creative research. This is keenly felt within the creative education institutions, the prohibitively expensive university fees directly exclude a high percentage of prospective students, who are being convinced that the value of education is judged by the job opportunities it creates, and that the Arts do not lead to sustainable employment. This is a dangerous narrative that must be challenged. This educational system is unsustainable, inefficient, and is having its creativity squeezed out of it. Therefore we consider it imperative to begin presenting alternatives to reenergize the concept of the “Art School”.

CLASSROOMS

MilesKm aims to ask what architecture and environment is required for a creative learning experience to occur. During TANTEO a classroom can take any form: a bar, a park, a market.

IN MOVEMENT

TANTEO will be peripatetic. Traveling together, around the UK and Ireland, visiting diverse areas, aiming to engage with their creative and activist communities. All locations will be decided in collaboration with all participants.

SUSTAINABLE NETWORK  

MilesKm is committed to creating a sustainable network of participants and contacts. We hope to keep improving the quality of this network as the number of people involved expands. We hope to embrace new technologies that open up new possibilities in this realm. We take this responsibility very seriously in response  to the impersonal nature of the current educational institutions.

OBJECTIVES 

TANTEO is divided into two overlapping projects. MilesKm aims to undertake a stringent collaborative research proposal,  looking to interrogate the forms that creative education is delivered through, Identify challenges that Art education is set to face and to offer alternative frameworks and structures.

The other dimension of the TANTEO project is the execution of the peripatetic learning space this summer (2015). We will be seeking to facilitate an atmosphere of vibrant, diverse and enriching learning for all involved; creating a sustainable platform of “students” that constitute a borderless network of free trade; informed and interacting with the local community, offering alternatives models of creative education.

Our goal is to have reached a new level of understanding of the conceptual and practical issues surrounding contemporary art education. This will serve as a basis to further evolve the MilesKm project.

STUDENT/TEACHER ROLES

In order to challenge the restrictive binary of teacher / student that exists within the current Art School model, every participant will be considered an equal, both a teacher and a student. oscillating between these roles during the duration of the project. 

INTERNATIONAL

MilesKm embraces an international approach to developing collaborative relationships. MilesKm believes that radical and authentic change can be achieved by promoting collaboration among diverse communities. 

LOCAL 

This approach is strengthened by the emphasis MilesKm puts on executing its undertakings aware and informed by the local geography and communities.

Local participation is incredibly important to the project. We understand the importance of learning from local artists, architects, activists and educators. We wish to invite people and local institutions to become MilesKm hosts at the different locations visited.