Contemporary Art as Extra-curricular Learning: Lessons from a University Art Gallery

Abstract: This paper reports on a UK-based research project which investigated the extent to which a university–based contemporary arts gallery could potentially enhance the student learning experience. There is growing interest across the higher education sector about the ways in which extra-curricular and campus-based learning opportunities are useful vehicles for students’ holistic educational development (Hopkinson, Hughes and Layer, 2008; NASPA and ACPA, 2004). This runs parallel to a developing understanding of the cultural and cognitive benefits of interaction with contemporary art, which purportedly include the encouragement of disciplinary and interdisciplinary understanding, improved meta-cognitive skills and enhancing the ability to interpret meaning from distinct media (Creative B, 2010). However, to date there is no work which consciously draws together these two areas and investigates the impacts of exposure to contemporary art within a gallery environment on the higher education student learning experience. This project addressed this effective gap by developing critical understandings of how students’ experience the gallery using Falk and Dierking’s’ (2000) ‘contextual model of learning’ to encapsulate the determinants of constructivist learning within the free-choice learning environment of a gallery. The paper reports on our findings and makes recommendations for how links can be forged between curator and curriculum to engage students and create life-wide learning opportunities throughout the broader university milieu.