The Body Frontier

The Finnish Art Teachers’ Society celebrated its 90th anniversary in 1996 with an exhibition ‘Picturing a Century’. In connection with this occasion, four students of the University of Art and Design Helsinki (Marjukka Barron, Mirka Kastinen, Iris karner- Kupiainen and Elina Heikkila) organised a course ‘The Body Frontier’ involving 25 upper secondary school pupils from four Helsinki schools. One of the aims of the course was to bring forth the many possibilities art education offers, another was to expand the anniversary exhibition outside the museum walls, reaching people who do not usually go to museums. The course first examined different views of the body and studied historical and philosophical aspects as well as contemporary media images, and secondly the study of one’s own body; e.g. its form and the space it holds. The pupils made paper sculptures using their own body as a mould. The sculptures and a short video about their making were exhibited in the central shopping arcade Forum, adjacent to the museum with the main exhibition. The course instructors approached people in the arcade and discussed feelings and ideas evoked by the work. The process itself and the pupils’ ideas were documented in the museum with the main exhibition. The course was a successful experiment in co-operation between schools and a university, financing itself largely through commercial sponsorship. The exhibition provoked discussion about the dividing line between art education and ‘art proper’, and the public presentation of pupils’ work.