Skip to content
1981
Volume 20, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 1743-5234
  • E-ISSN: 2040-090X

Abstract

This article outlines three dominant ways in which the concept of potentiality is discussed in art educational literature, and in particular the connections between actualizing potentialities and creation. It then pivots to the works of Giorgio Agamben in order to problematize some of the basic ontological assumptions embedded within the three dominant views of the potentiality–actuality–creativity relationship. Agamben focuses his analysis on the (im)potential remnant of potentiality that remains within any given actualization and highlights the role of such (im)potentiality in creative acts. To illustrate this role, the article offers four ways that (im)potentiality exhibits itself in various art forms before concluding with implications for imagining the artist’s studio as a space and time for (im)potential acts of creation.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00172_1
2024-10-31
2026-04-21

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Acuff, Joni (2019), ‘Editorial: Whiteness and art education’, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 36:1, pp. 812.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Agamben, Giorgio (1993), The Coming Community (trans. M. Hardt), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Agamben, Giorgio (2017a), Autoritratto nello Studio, Milan: Nottetempo.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Agamben, Giorgio (2017b), The Fire and the Tale (trans. L. Chiesa), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Agamben, Giorgio (2000), Means without End: Notes on Politics (trans. V. Binetti and C. Casarino), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Agamben, Giogio (2022), Studiolo (trans. A. Toscano), London: Seagull Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Ahmed, Sara (2006), Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Araya, Daniel and Peters, Michael A. (eds) (2010), Education in the Creative Economy: Knowledge and Learning in the Age of Innovation, London: Peter Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Baldacchino, John (2013), ‘What creative industries? Instrumentalism, autonomy and the education of artists’, International Journal of Education Through Art, 9:3, pp. 34356.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Biesta, Gert (2006), Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future, London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Denmead, Tyler (2021), ‘Time after whiteness: Performative pedagogy and temporal subjectivities in art education’, Studies in Art Education, 62:2, pp. 13041.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén, Kraehe, Amelia M. and Carpenter, Stephen B. II (2018), ‘The arts as white property: An introduction to race, racism, and the arts in education’, in A. M. Kraehe, R. Gaztambide-Fernández and B. S. Carpenter II (eds), The Palgrave Handbook on Race and the Arts in Education, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 131.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Kalin, Nadine (2018), The Neoliberalization of Creativity Education: Democratizing, Destructing and Decreating, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Kalin, Nadine and Barney, Daniel (2014), ‘Inoperative art education’, Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, 34, pp. 6375.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Lewis, Tyson E. (2013), On Study: Giorgio Agamben and Educational Potentiality, London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Lewis, Tyson E. (2018), Inoperative Learning: A Radical Rewriting of Educational Potentialities, London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Lewis, Tyson E. (2019), ‘Study: A disinterested passion’, in D. Ford (ed.), Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education: Common Concepts for Contemporary Movements, Leiden: Brill, pp. 398407.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Lewis, Tyson E. (2023), Educational Potentialities: Collected Talks on Revolutionary Education, Organizing, and Aesthetics, Madison, WI: Iskra Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Lewis, Tyson E. and Hyland, Peter (2022a), Studious Drift: Movements and Protocols for a Postdigital Education, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Lewis, Tyson E. and Hyland, Peter (2022b), ‘The antifascist politics of studioing’, Revista Portuguesa de Pedagogia, 56, pp. 118.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Murphy, Michael P. A. (2020), ‘Active learning as destituent potential: Agambenian philosophy of education and moderate steps towards the coming politics’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52:1, pp. 6678.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Rostan, Susan M. (2010), ‘Studio learning: Motivation, competence, and the development of young art students’ talent and creativity’, Creativity Research Journal, 22:3, pp. 26171.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Scheffler, Israel (1985), Of Human Potential: An Essay in the Philosophy of Education, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Tervo, Juuso (2016), ‘On the impossibility of life in art and education’, Visual Arts Research, 42:1, pp. 10416.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Vlieghe, Joris (2013), ‘Experiencing (im)potentiality: Bollnow and Agamben on the educational meaning of school practices’, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 32:2, pp. 189203.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Vlieghe, Joris (2016), ‘Potentialism in education’, Ethics and Education, 11:3, pp. 33839.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00172_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test