This course is a joint program with the School for Social work FHNW.
Without the questions of humanity, there would be no art. Questions like: Who am I? How do I want to be? I feel – does that mean I am? How free is freedom? What limits me? What effect do limitations have? What makes me “hungry”? What is the meaning of meaning? There are many more questions and arguably also that many more answers. Personal or individual questions will become jumping-off points for artistic work, allowing the questions themselves to become material. Artistic processes will be perceived and will be valid in their own right. The point is not to use art as therapy. The focus of the workshop is rather on the artistic process, which participants will have the chance to initiate for themselves. How casually can an emancipation from problems set in with just the awareness that questions or topics do not need to be answered at all? Participants explore examples of the possibilities of artistic encounters. The results can be figurative, textual or improvisational. Workshop participants can experience what it means to work in an open-ended way. Creativity turns from a concept to an experience. It is practised and tested. This workshop is designed for experts from schools, social work and the health sector as well as for all people who show an interest and are open to experiments. Participants will gain more conceptual and artistic knowledge. They will acquire practically oriented skills in negotiating artistic methods. We will explore the realm of possibilities of intermedia, advance process experience in creative methods, expand the individual frameworks for reflection, connect artistic work with the knowledge of other professions, and push personal development forwards.
Günther Wüsten, worked at the University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) Basel from 1998 to 2002. Since 2002, he has worked at the University of Applied Sciences Aargau and later the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). His professional focuses are resource-oriented counselling and coaching, and methods and concepts of psychological counselling. Psychotherapy, systemic and cognitive behavioural therapy, clinical social work. Since 2006 he has been head of the Psychosocial Counselling master’s programme (www.psychosozialeberatung.ch). In 2013 and 2016, he developed the Action and Resource-oriented Counselling CAS programme and the Artistic Competences curriculum in the Psychosocial Practices CAS programme. The main thematic focus of his work is on art in the social sphere. In 2009, 2013 and 2018, he directed the Clinical Social Work (FHNW) conference. Cooperation with the ASH Berlin and the Coburg Academy of Applied Sciences. In 2021, he published Ressourcenaktivierung (Hogrefe). He is a member of the managing team at PSP Psychotherapieausbildung Basel. He provides resources for supervision, team building, self-awareness and hypnotherapy. More info at: https://www.fhnw.ch/de/personen/guenther-wuesten.
The continuing education programme of the Institute of Arts and Design Education aims to broaden participants’ perspective of their own artistic work and shared creative endeavours with others. Participants will be introduced to creative educational strategies, and acquire the ability to make creative debates effective for social processes. Both the weeklong continuing education courses and the optional one-on-one coaching sessions integrate methods from the fields of education, the fine arts, arts education, performance and other participatory practices. The improvement of artistic, creative and communication skills can help pave the way for more equal opportunities. Social inclusion, as one of the main conditions of equal opportunities, requires good communication and cultural competences – and it is these competences that artistic and creative educational strategies can do an excellent job at cultivating. By strengthening artistic and creative competences, we not only increase the realms of possibility for design, but also for communication, social interactions, the strengthening of social structures, personal expression and the experience of self-efficacy.
Participants will - gain experiences navigating their own forms of artistic expression, - acquire the ability to structure artistic and creative processes, - acquire skills that prepare them to deal adeptly with various methods, digital and otherwise, for teaching art and design and their application in social practice, - learn to kick-start debates on creative processes in various social structures by way of artistic and educational strategies, - deepen their knowledge of various communication and digital skills, - acquire know-how about networking art and education with a variety of target groups, - gain experiences that help integrate artistic and cultural processes as open and experimental processes into their work.
No prior artistic or technical experience is required. The workshops are open to all people who work in social contexts: people who teach, mediators, social work professionals from the healthcare sector, healthcare assistants, coaches, team builders, and people interested in art, design and culture.
Modules and workshops for a total of 10 ECTS enable registration for the final module with integrated certificate thesis. The graduates are individually supervised by Prof. Dorothée King and her team in 5 individual coaching sessions. Upon successful completion, participants receive the Certificate of Advanced Studies CAS HGK FHNW "Artistic Literacy".
Art and design, and imparting their contents open up new ways of perceiving and shaping the world. Learning in art and design is marked by an intense experience of self-agency and dealing with highly diverse contexts.
