Just under 400 Teaching Artists from five continents, together in Antwerp for three days. A major undertaking made possible through an intensive collaboration between OPENDOEK and the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp. Under the watchful eye of ITAC, the International Teaching Artist Collaborative, and partner Fontys Academy of the Arts, DE SINGEL arts centre became an innovative meeting place for art, education and social change.
Anyone who passed by the bubble-wrap Burst Bed in the courtyard – an accessible performance for and with neurodivergent families – or got certified as 'officially kind' at The Office of Kindness, immediately knew that this was no ordinary conference. ITAC8 became an interactive exchange of ideas and good practices, with room for rest and sensory decompression too.
A conference that did not shy away from social problems and international conflicts, but instead embraced them as an opportunity to offer inspiration for resilient societies.
It began with a celebration: a cheerful fanfare led by Bart Van Aken. More than 200 international young performers made their way through the corridors, carrying cleverly assembled recycled materials, all the way to the Red Hall, where Teaching Artists, experts, policymakers and Caroline Gennez, the Flemish Minister for Welfare and Poverty Reduction, Culture and Equal Opportunities, welcomed them with growing amazement.
It immediately became clear that ITAC8 wanted to be more than a place to exchange knowledge. With the themes Arts & Education, Arts & Care and Arts & Conflict, the conference deliberately reached out beyond the familiar circle of Teaching Artists. People from education, care, part-time arts education and other areas of society joined the conversation. Despite the many differences, a strong common ground emerged: a search for connection within diversity.
The first day brought us back to the essence of Teaching Artistry: activating people’s artistic potential. Eric Booth articulated this powerfully in his keynote The Sleeping Giant, while workshops and conversations translated the ideas into practice.
What happens when art is not only something you learn, but also a way of exploring, asking questions and experiencing new possibilities? This connected with Dorothy Heathcote’s 'a vision of the possible': art can take us beyond what we know and allow us to experience that things can be different.
The reactions afterwards were telling. 'I can’t teach in the same way as I did before,' said one of the participants. Perhaps that is also a form of impact that cannot be captured in numbers: a conference can bring hundreds of people together, but real change sometimes only begins when someone walks into a classroom the next day and tries something different.
On the second day, the focus shifted to care and wellbeing. In Lieve Nagels’ talk on social prescribing through the arts, it became clear how important the role of the artist in care contexts is becoming. One principle kept returning: reciprocity. Nothing about us without us: when working with people, they should not only be invited to the project, but also be given a voice within it.
Artists bring something of their own. They sometimes deliberately draw outside the lines, ask questions that are not obvious and look for possibilities where others first see limitations. Not to take over care, or to pretend that art can solve every problem. But to explore together what becomes possible when different ways of looking meet.
Where art was sometimes previously used primarily as a means to an end, the movement is increasingly towards two-way traffic: not only asking what art can do for care, but also what care can do for art. In Antwerp, this is already leading to new collaborations between students from the arts programmes and students in occupational therapy.
The third day opened with an inspiring testimony from Israeli Chen Alon and Palestinian Sulaiman Khatib, the Israeli-Palestinian co-founders of Combatants for Peace. They spoke about their continuing commitment to non-violence and their search for connection and peace amidst the pervasive conflict in their societies.
As Chen Alon pointed out, the conference could just as well have started with the theme of Conflict: isn’t citizenship equally relevant to care and education, to communities, to society as a whole?
Their documentary There Is Another Way also continued to resonate. Not only during the screening, but afterwards too. Conversations continued, people stayed together and participants went out for dinner together. In this way, the dialogue was given every opportunity to continue beyond the duration of the conference. 'We should actually show this film to all our students,' said someone from the dance programme, 'not just to the programmes where it might seem most obvious.'
A good conference does not necessarily provide answers. Sometimes it simply makes a question stay with you for longer. That is also where the power of artistic practices lies: creating space to see other possibilities.
The impact of ITAC8 cannot yet be fully measured. Some movements need time to grow. Other effects are already visible: new connections between different programmes, ideas for collaborations with cultural institutions, and participants who want to approach their practice differently.
ITAC8 also showed how large and diverse the field of Teaching Artistry has become. New ITAC Hubs were launched, and the network’s international reach continues to grow. This also brings in perspectives that are not always part of a Western European conference narrative.
The contexts differ, as do the social challenges and the ways in which art, education and care are organised. But beneath those differences lies a shared belief: art can activate people and help them look differently at themselves, at each other and at the world. Perhaps that is the common language of Teaching Artists.
One thing is certain: almost 400 people came together in Antwerp for three days. They met one another, questioned assumptions and experienced art in very different ways. They went home with new questions, insights and connections.
The conference now travels with them to classrooms, studios, care institutions, cultural organisations and communities around the world. Into new collaborations, different ways of teaching, and questions that do not yet have an answer. Perhaps that is where the real impact lies: not in what was completed during those three days, but in what begins again afterwards.
Relive Louder Together? You can.
Pictures by
© Luca Depuydt
© Johan De Paepe
© Kristian G. Selon, SEANSE
© Joris Vervliet
