Author(s): Necla COÅKUN
Manyfactors including the World Wars, consumption society as a product of the capitalist system, and technological novelties have been influential in development of attitudes by human beings against the modern world and its values. This thought system, i.e. postmodernism, encompasses questioning and criticism of all established values, ideologies, and grand narratives. Values and norms of art itself, couldn’t escape from this criticism. One of the basic elements of postmodern art criticism is that art became detached from life. Having almost simultaneously influenced all the fields, postmodern thought also affected the educational approaches as adopted in visual arts education. Multiculturalism should be involved in education, and especially in visualarts education, since thanks to the technological advancements any information or news can be simultaneously shared throughout the entire world and that different cultures cohabit the same geographic allocation. In addition, interdisciplinary interaction should be involved too in order to enrich the instruments of artistic expression. Last but not least, visual culture studies and practices should also be involved so as to develop critical thinking skills. This would require adopting different and new approaches as regards theres pective roles of the stake holders, curriculum contents, teaching methods, and teaching environments in the visual arts education field. In this context, the views of students, as stake holders within the education process, are important. Therefore the aim of the present study is to investigate the views of students’ related to learning-teaching process through their own art works based on their research on cultural values, questioning, interdisciplinary relations, and contemporary art approaches, created in the context of “Self-History Project” conducted within A/r/tography. The study was conducted between 2012 and 2013 Painting Studio, and data were collected and interpreted from six students who involved in the entire process, by semi-structured interviews. As a result of the study, the students reported that they used visual culture images and objects in their works, that they were influenced by local values, that they made use of interdisciplinary relations, that they reflected their research on different cultures on visuals, that they used certain objects in their metaphorical contexts as an instrument of expression, and finally that they were positively impressed by such a student-centered approach. The students also stated that the Project was contributed to enhance their teaching experiences and served as a teaching model.
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