Teckningsrevolt : Förändringsprocesser i teckningsundervisning med 68-vågen på Konstfack

Sammanfattning: This study takes its starting point in a shift identified at the Teacher Institute of Drawing (Teckningslärarinstitutet - TI) within the Konstfack School of arts and crafts in Stockholm at the time of the wave of radicalism that took place in about 1968. Changes in the drawing instruction at TI have been examined through interviews with former students at the institute, student fanzines and archive materials relating to the restructuring of the Konstfack School during the 1960s. Here, it emerges that the curriculum previously focused largely on aspects of form in the mastery of tools used to produce images. After 1968, however, the drawing education became substantially more theoretical. It came to focus more on discussing pictures and images and understanding the societal functions of drawing, which were emphasized more than students’ own creative work. During the period studied, subject categories were also restructured, with new constellations arising and the boundaries between different media becoming more diffuse. Ingredients in these changes included photographic media, analyses of mass media and a critical questioning of an autonomous artistic domain. A disrupted balance in power relations at the school, with students questioning established norms, contributed to this new orientation.  In a creative process, accompanying the research, I have engaged in practices of picturemaking no longer included in the training at the current Department of Visual Arts and Sloyd Education at Konstfack, evolved from the former Teacher Institute of Drawing. This work could be described as a form of experimental archaeology, in which I have reflected on how practices might tread new paths when excluded from a previous context. I tested a method of free expression in painting and practised life drawing. I produced a large sculpture, to afford space for creating with physical materials. I also investigated drawing as a basis for other forms of pictorial expression, such as sculpture. The experience of this process enhanced my understanding, contributing an independent comment on the theoretical and historical investigation. The result is a monument in the form of an installation, constituting a tribute to the historical profession of drawing teacheresses.