Against the backdrop of liberation struggles and burgeoning new independent states in Africa, this paper, ‘The New Life’: Mozambican Art Students in the USSR, and the Aesthetic Epistemologies of Anti‐Colonial Solidarity (Savage, 2022) looks at how art contributes to the shaping of national agendas and identities. Savage sheds light on the experiences of Mozambican design students sent to the USSR in the eighties as part of an international socialist scholarship programme. They are taught the Russian curriculum, language, aesthetics, technical skills and socialist ideologies. Consequently, their own local education is deemed inferior and colonial power dynamics are reinforced. The students find ways to assimilate, sometimes surpassing educational standards, sometimes subverting them.
In reading this paper, I began to reflect on how the materials and references I use in the studio may inadvertently reinforce dominant Western standards, ideologies and narratives. Additionally, how to foster a sense of belonging with the awareness that this is experienced unevenly because it is intrinsically linked to power dynamics and inequality (May, 2013).
These reflections began on the bus. On my way to co-lead a writing workshop, I decided to review the six materials that we, the Year 1 Drawing staff, had assigned students to read in advance. It appeared that while we had successfully introduced a variety of writing forms such as songs, manifestos, and essays to encourage students to be open to diverse sources of inspiration, we had inadvertently overlooked racial and cultural diversity. All the authors were from Western, first-world countries, and only one was non-white. Amid hectic schedules and deadlines, we had missed a review of the material from a cultural perspective. It was a painful and jolting reminder that blind spots still exist in my teaching practice.
As a Black educator teaching within the white walls of academia, I am acutely aware of what this kind of erasure could signify. I think that is why I was disappointed in myself for not spotting this earlier. In their guide on Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum, Richards et al (2015) advocate for changes to curriculum content by expanding reading lists and visual references to reflect a global perspective, shifting from the dominant Eurocentric view. This resonates with my own teaching ethos where I foreground practitioners from the Global Majority to broaden and enrich students’ knowledge beyond the Western canon. Reflecting on bell hooks, I realised that I aim to present these practices in the widest spectrum of themes and interests – as their white counterparts – instead of the stereotypical lens of ‘revolt’, violence and anger (1995, p.103).
While this was an unpleasant experience, the paper was a much-needed spotlight to highlight a gap in my teaching practice. I have since shared my discovery with colleagues and we will be revising the reading list. I look forward to engaging students with the exciting works of artists and writers including Warsan Shire, Anaïs Duplan, Fred Motten, bell hooks and Otobong Nkanga who explore critical topics from deeply personal perspectives.
Bibliography
hooks, bell (1995). Art on My Mind. The New Press.
May, V. (2013). Connecting Self to Society. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Richards, A. and Finnigan, T. (2015). Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum: an art and design practitioner’s guide. [online] Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/resources/eedc_art_and_design_online_1568037256.pdf.
Savage, P. (2022). ‘The New Life’: Mozambican Art Students in the USSR, and the Aesthetic Epistemologies of Anti‐Colonial Solidarity. Art History, 45(5), pp.1078–1100. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12692.