European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education

Editorial for issue 1 2025

2025-10-07T14:06:34+00:00

Editorial

2025 issue of the European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education

Ketil Thorgersen

Editor in Chief

EJPAE is proud to present a new issue that dives into the vital and challenging intersection between the arts, education, and philosophy. In insecure and rapidly changing times of global instability to the pervasive influence of technology in nearly every domain of life, the two articles both provide refreshing takes on critique of institutions. In such troubling times, the arts and arts education are more needed than ever—not as an escape, but as a crucial space for critical reflection, imagining alternatives, and fostering human development beyond the dictates of efficiency and technocracy.

This issue contains two articles that are united by a shared theme: both examine and critique existing institutional structures while suggesting alternative methods that emphasize individual empowerment, creative expression, and community bonds. Collectively, they encourage us to reexamine essential questions regarding the role and possibilities of arts education in today's world. I am particularly pleased to share both, as they offer intriguing insights on how the core elements of the arts—creativity, play, and imagination—can become levers for meaningful change.

The first article is "Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System," by Cecilia Ferm Almqvist. In a unique and personal format, structured as a letter from a piano student to an educational philosopher from former Yugoslavia, Aleksandra Marjanovi?, the author provides a sharp critique of Western classical music conservatory culture. Almqvist illuminates the struggles of students within a "closed system" dominated by the master-apprentice model, competition, and un-reflected tradition. Drawing on Marjanovi?'s philosophical ideas, the article re-thinks higher music education as an "open system" that embraces play, creativity, and imagination to help students develop their own "life plans" as autonomous, democratic musicians. It is a necessary and thought-provoking read for all involved in music education, especially those grappling with how to challenge conservative teaching cultures and the pervasive influence of neo-liberal structures on the arts.

Following this is "Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change: Strategies and Possible Locations," by Eli Bruderman. This article takes a broad philosophical sweep, engaging with the aesthetic theories of Friedrich Schiller and Herbert Marcuse to ask whether art and play can genuinely drive social change, particularly toward Marcuse’s vision of a "society as a work of art." Bruderman argues that institutionalized art, exemplified by the museum, often fails to act as an arena for meaningful resistance, instead serving to domesticate and neutralize subversive energies due to its dependency on technocracy and private capital. The article then proposes an alternative model: "hypo-modernism," a form of grassroots, small-scale, and ethical social-artistic activism that utilizes art and play "from below" to effect real change within communities—a concrete realization of utopian aesthetic play. This essay offers a deep and necessary caution against the domestication of art's critical potential.

Both articles, though addressing different fields of arts education converge in their call to resist the narrowing of artistic purpose and to actively reclaim the potential of creativity and play for building a more humane and democratic society. They powerfully remind us that the philosophical foundation of arts education is always a site for activism, whether personal or communal.

I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation I got through reading these texts, and really hope that even you will get some valuable new epiphanies from taking part in the thoughts of these authors.

Ketil Thor Thorgersen

Editor in Chief Stockholm October 7^th 2025

Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System

2025-04-23T12:59:55+00:00

This paper is formatted as a letter from a piano student in a European conservatory educational program to Aleksandra Marjanovi? , an educational philosopher from former Yugoslavia. The student was one of 24 interviewed in a larger study concerning conservatory cultures in Eastern and Central Europe. A narrative analysis approach was taken, and the student’s expressed experiences were intertwined with Marjanovi?'s philosophical thoughts in the form of a letter. In the article the student turns to the philosopher, as she feels disoriented and had imaginatively read the philosopher’s thoughts regarding creating one’s own life plan through creativity and play (as in playful approach), as well as about education as an open system, where students’ actual social circumstances are taken into account, and transform institutional education to societal education. She feels that she has neither been encouraged nor able to create or follow any life plans through her education. Instead, she finds herself questioning the directions she was led in, if they existed at all. Her insights make her see higher music education, not least in the Western classical specialization, as a closed system, which makes her even more frustrated. Now, in her doctoral studies, she wants to discuss her experiences with Marjanovi?, whose writings recently became available in English. The philosophical exploration aims to shed light on and reflect upon how conservatory education could take Marjanovi?’s thoughts into account aiming to contribute to meaningful interrelations between conservatories and society from a democracy point of view. The specific aim of this paper is to present a view of higher music education as an open system, where students of classical music are invited to play and to create their “life plans” as becoming musicians. Throughout the paper the ambition has been to stay as close as possible to the original student interview transcription as possible.

Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change

2024-10-09T13:14:50+00:00

This paper examines whether Art and play can create an arena for activism and change, and if so, under what conditions this can take place and what strategies must be employed for its resistance to be effective. For the purpose of my inquiry, I link Art and play together and see them as natural, inseparable partners. This line of thought follows Friedrich Schiller and Herbert Marcuse, but ideas of thinkers, such as Johan Huizinga and Charles Fourier, can also be traced at the root of this approach. I argue that in its traditional institutions, especially museums, Art cannot constitute an arena for creating meaningful change in society and unable to generate resistance and change within its own socially accepted frameworks. A real change brought on by Art and play can happen in arenas that are fundamentally alternative to the institutional Art world. Finally, the discussion will turn to the alternative arena, the scene of communal creative activity, where Art and play create a change and have a meaningful effect on social processes.