Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

way the children’s artworks were treated. In some best practice examples, children were
encouraged to present their work and critique the work of others.
This is not to say that performance and exhibition should be at the expense of a careful and
thorough creative process. At all levels of education, the creative process, risk-taking and
experimentation are more important than achieving an attractive or ‘saleable’ end product.
Furthermore, an over-reliance on producing a high quality end product may be detrimental to
the children engaging in exploratory and risk-orientated processes. Despite these caveats,
performance, exhibition and audience are important in the artistic process and bring kudos to
the child and to the field.
At the further and higher education level the lack of attention given to marketing and
presentational skills was particularly evident:
There is a lack of training in marketing of the arts and culture. The tourist office does a bit, but there is so much more that
could be done. We have a heritage museum and art gallery, but the visitor traffic to these places is low. I think the school
children go twice a year. The museum is free to schools and can be used so much more to integrate with other learning – like
social studies. We used to have a gallery that sold works and had exhibitions.
Ironically, it was commented that several marketing courses had been ‘dropped’ from arts
courses because they were not popular with students. As one creative industry professional
commented, “Basic expressing and discussion is lacking in Icelandic schools – stand up and talk,
express yourself! This is discouraged in Icelandic schools.” This lack of marketing expertise is
apparent in this example described by teachers of a specialist textile course:
We have been a textile department for 20 years. Before that we were part of the ‘house wives’ school”. We have
moved from a craft base to design based education in textiles. We get all types of pupils. It is still mainly girls
though. We only get one or two males per year. We take in about 50 pupils per year. We cover dressmaking,
fashion design, interior design, general design, textile (including weaving and knitting), history of design and
contemporary design. There is an exhibition and show every semester. Pupils have to present a portfolio and at
least one or two garments. They must document the whole process. We need more marketing expertise. We lack
students who can take their work through to the higher levels. I would like to be able to take the students to
London to show them how serious the industry is there, but we can no longer afford to do that. We encourage
the students to go aboard to undertake fashion courses. The teachers here are active in the profession and in the
professional associations. We used to run a business course for students in the graphic design course, but this
was unpopular with the students so we have stopped offering it. Textiles are undervalued. You can live without
maths or science or even art. But try living without clothes in a place like Iceland!
3.4 Development in specific art forms and creative approaches to learning
‣ The arts and culture are vital languages for understanding the world
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