When I was asked to write about how art is taught in Harvard, I initially set out to speak to as many faculty members and students as possible. It was obvious from the outset that pedagogy in the visual arts is a difficult subject. It involves on some level navigating a difficult paradox in which a student is instructed on how to create an individual art.

I asked professors how they go about teaching the creative process, and students what they glean from this instruction. Their sentiments demonstrate a shared exuberance and powerful sense of freedom that ought to be a source of inspiration for the wider Harvard community.

Yet any whole-hearted embrace warrants further investigation. I speak from the perspective of a junior joint concentrator in Social Studies and Visual & Environmental Studies. I have now followed both the video and the studio art tracks for several semesters, focusing on the role of arts within movements of social change. Looking back over my experiences in the department, I am filled with admiration and, I must admit, a few lingering questions. Is there an implicit direction in the transformative freedoms that are afforded to VES students as they explore their artistic media? Similarly, does the blessing of unfettered self-exploration stand beside the risk of self-involvement?

The reflections that follow were prompted both by my conversations with students and faculty over the past week and by my own experiences in the department over the last two and a half years.

JUNK DOCUMENTARY

In the second semester of my freshman year, I enrolled in Alfred Guzzetti’s Visual & Environmental Studies documentary video class “Life Stories.” Within our first several sessions, we were given a camera, a list of a few essential videos to watch, and a simple assignment: to narrate the story of someone unaffiliated with Harvard in a five-minute video clip. In other words, within two weeks of beginning my first art class at Harvard, I had already been granted an exhilarating freedom—I found myself turned out into the world to make art.

As I was filming street musicians one afternoon, a man approached me offering a far more engaging story. I followed him on a 40-minute subway journey to his apartment. Once inside, he lit a flame, opened a drawer, and injected himself with heroin. The story we were going to tell, he said, would be called “Junk Documentary.”

I spent the last two months of my freshman year following him through his daily routines as he struggled with his addiction. Yet as much as I saw of the problems that surrounded heroin use, I was also constantly reminded by the man himself that the video should be an avowal of the excitement of his lifestyle rather than a critique of it.

I was faced with a dilemma. Was it best for me to focus on the negative aspects of drug use, perhaps even creating a video that I could present to treatment centers urging for greater retention of users, for methadone maintenance and for more holistic treatment practices? Or was the story really not mine to tell? Was I providing a chance to those outside of Harvard, outside of VES, to speak through the video?

On one level, the task of sorting out these issues was both exciting and liberating, and I was indebted to my professor for giving me that opportunity. The independence he gave me helped me gain a new degree of confidence in my work and a passion to do it well. But in retrospect, I wonder if I was really qualified. While my fellow students, and especially my professor, were extremely supportive, I myself did not have enough of an understanding of the situation to even ask for the help I really needed.

Is it possible that I was given too much freedom too early? Though students do benefit from the opportunities for exploration this liberty provides, it may also come at a cost. It begs the question of what motivates the teaching strategy that gives that freedom.

LEARNING THROUGH THE MEDIUM

I have asked a number of VES faculty how they teach art, and have heard similar answers from painters and filmmakers alike. I hear two shared aims: to show students the options provided to them by the materials they use and urge them to find their own creative direction. Every teacher I spoke to agreed with recently tenured Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies Stephen Prina that the mastery of technique is not an end in itself. Instead, they argue that technique must be put to the service of an individual’s ideas. Teaching students to explore their personal directions through work with materials seems to be the paramount pedagogical goal.