Asian Art and Culture Interest Group (AACIG) Column: Spring 2023

Congratulations!

AACIG congratulates Yichien Cooper for being elected to serve as NAEA’s Higher Education Division Director-Elect. Its board and membership thank Cooper for her dedicated 2 years of service as AACIG’s President (2021–2023). She will continue her service with AACIG as its Past President.

AACIG also congratulates Ryan Shin, founding member of AACIG, on his election as AACIG’s new President (2023–2025) and welcomes his leadership. Shin is the 2022 NAEA recipient of the COMC J. Eugene Grigsby, Jr. Award for his distinguished contributions to art education.

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Inspire your professional practices and curriculum design with these three books that teach about Asian art and culture.

Recommended Readings

The spring and summer months provide wonderful opportunities to learn from and delight in books that teach about Asian art and culture and apply their teachings to develop a comprehensive art curriculum. AACIG is proud to highlight three recently published books that emphasize teachings that directly correlate with AACIG’s mission: “to identify and promote art education research and practices on Asian art, culture(s), artists, and philosophies within global and cross-cultural perspectives.”

Teaching Chinese Arts & Culture: Content, Context, and Pedagogy
Editors: Kevin Hsieh, Yichien Cooper, and Lilly Lu
Publisher: InSEA, ISBN: 978-989-53600-0-0

Over the past 3 decades, the scope and content of visual arts curricula in the United States reflect a more diverse range of ethnicities and cultures than ever before. Through critical multicultural art education, learners are exposed to the notion that all art and artifacts should be understood in light of the culture from which they originated. A culturally sensitive and responsive art curriculum empowers learners to respect and appreciate their own cultural traditions and values as well as those of others, thus helping prevent inappropriate use or appropriation of artworks.

Teaching Chinese Arts & Culture: Content, Context, and Pedagogy provides approaches and strategies that K–16 art teachers can benefit from and implement. The variety of perspectives presented also allow art educators to adapt the book to create their own curriculum and develop pedagogies and strategies uniquely geared to their students’ needs and school’s requirements. This free InSEA publication can be downloaded via https://www.insea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220511-Hsieh-et-al-TCAC-compressed.pdf.

Counternarratives From Asian American Art Educators: Identities, Pedagogies, and Practice
Editors: Ryan Shin, Maria Lim, Oksun Lee, and Sandrine Han
Publisher: Routledge, ISBN 978-1032119533

Counternarratives From Asian American Art Educators: Identities, Pedagogies, and Practice beyond the Western Paradigm collects and explores the professional and pedagogical narratives of Asian art educators and researchers in North America. Few studies published since the substantial immigration of Asian art educators to the United States in the 1990s have addressed their professional identities in higher education, K–12, and museum contexts. By foregrounding narratives from Asian American arts educators within these settings, this edited volume enacts a critical shift from Western, Eurocentric perspectives to the unique contributions of Asian American practitioners. Enhanced by the application of the AsianCrit framework and theories of intersectionality, positionality, decolonization, and allyship, the authors focus on professional and pedagogical discourses and practices that support Asian American identity development and practice. Access the book at https://www.routledge.com/Counternarratives-from-Asian-American-Art-Educators-Identities-Pedagogies/Shin-Lim-Lee-Han/p/book/9781032119519.

STEAM Teaching and Learning Through the Arts and Design: A Practical Guide for PK–12 Educators
Author: Debrah C. Sickler-Voigt
Publisher: Routledge, ISBN 978-1032025148

Featuring 150 visually stunning, full-color images, STEAM Teaching and Learning Through the Arts and Design: A Practical Guide for PK–12 Educators offers user-friendly, approachable strategies to facilitate educators’ STEAM planning, instruction, and assessment. Its curriculum draws from wide-ranging artists and designers, with teachings from Asian artists that include father of video art Nam June Paik, ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai, ceramicist Patti Warashina, video game designer Jenova Chen, and new media/conceptual artist Mawish Chishty.

The book explores the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary connections between STEAM disciplines and provides a model to form authentic, well-designed, and age-appropriate preK–12 learning tasks that encourage students to make deep connections and study subject matter in context through art media and technologies. Its “Meet the Educators” section highlights educators’ best practices for teaching STEAM in a variety of educational settings, including international venues. Beginning April 11, 2023, access the book and download its free PowerPoints, lesson plans, and instructional resources at https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/_author/sickler-voigt.

Debrah C. Sickler-Voigt, AACIG Column Editor
Professor of Art Education, Middle Tennessee State University. Email: arteducation.us@gmail.com

Yichien Cooper, AACIG Chair
Lecturer and Field Supervisor, College of Education, Washington State University Tri-Cities. Email: yichiencooper@gmail.com