This master thesis explores how performative reflection can be used in secondary school art education to create a studio project that reflects on social cultural themes. In contemporary art education, assignments that are set in social cultural contexts and connect with the students’ lived world or that use the class as a learning environment are rare, as are assignments which focus on performative reflection as a way to express feelings.

For my theoretical framework, I explored the possibilities of dialogism as a performative tool for reflection to create an awareness of the social cultural themes that are expressed in contemporary and pop-culture artworks. I used the pedagogical design principles designed by Emiel Heijnen for Authentic Art Education as a framework to create an educational project which connects with the lived world of the students, is set in social cultural contexts and uses the class as an active learning environment. My research has taught me that reflection as a performative mode can be an active way to express one’s awareness, beliefs, knowledge and values in a creative work.

Based on the research done for the theoretical framework, I created an educational project which uses dialogue about the various layers of meaning in contemporary and pop- culture artworks to explore social cultural themes expressed by artists. The students subsequently use this exploration of the personal landscapes of professional artists as a model to explore their own personal landscapes and express their feelings and findings in a reflective studio project.

This master thesis will demonstrate how dialogical teaching can serve as a performative tool to create a reflective studio project by exploring the personal landscapes and social cultural issues expressed by contemporary and pop-culture artists in combination with the exploration of the personal landscapes of students by students.

External critic: Moniek Warmer (art education developer, adviser and trainer)