Artist and mediator Dorit Cypis described a course she taught at CalArts, in which her students learned about the justice system first-hand at a courthouse through observation, interviews, and art projects that were presented on-site. She suggested that art schools currently feed into predominant models of success by fostering self-promotion and competition over collaboration and social engagement. She addressed the problematic nature of art pedagogy as the site where artists transmit values from one generation to the next, asking: Are artists better off learning in school or on the street?

Dorit Cypis spoke on the panel “The Personal is Political, Revisited” at Exquisite Acts & Everyday Rebellions: 2007 CalArts Feminist Art Symposium, a student-organized project that took place at CalArts on March 10, 2007.

http://exquisiteacts.org/symposium/the-personal-is-political-revisited.html