WHERE ARE THE ARTISTS OF TOMORROW?

Culture benefits physical and mental health, in addition to contributing to the economic development and prosperity of countries. If we want a world in which we continue to enrich views, artistic education must be present in educational curricula.

Imagine a world where no books are written. In which no musical pieces are created or new color combinations are made on a canvas. A world without art would be disastrous: culture is a social good and a way of life that we must take care of. Behind every painting, film or play there is a group of people who work so that we can enjoy, question, empathize and imagine other worlds.

Culture contributes to the economic development and wealth of countries and, in the case of Latin America, contributes more than 2% of the GDP and 1.7% of jobs in the region, according to a study by the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
It is a gear that moves because there are those who create and those who are willing to see, listen and enjoy. But what can we do to continue generating culture? How to encourage artistic vocations so that a world without culture does not exist?

During the II Ibero-American Seminar on Early Childhood, Reading, Artistic Languages and Reading Families in Early Childhood, held in April 2022 by the OEI and CERLALC, the family was mentioned as the first germ of the reading and writing habit. The home is where the initial development of boys and girls occurs. And also the space where the artist originates.
However, the educational center also has a decisive role in encouraging creative capacity. The arts allow children to develop skills such as creativity and innovation, and that is why Artistic Education Week is celebrated from May 23 to 29 of this year. Since 2012, UNESCO has invited with this date to reflect on the importance of educating in the arts, a discipline that for its general director, Audrey Azouley, "is not only a means to confront crisis situations, but also contributes to socio-emotional well-being and the improvement of learning outcomes.

After school, libraries, theaters, museums and cultural centers are the next links in this chain to keep culture alive and generate artistic hobbies during childhood. Aware of the role of the school in culture and the arts, we work in several directions so that artistic education has the role it deserves in teaching.
One of the latest initiatives has been the artistic experiences platform, a web space that compiles good practices and activities carried out by cultural managers, institutions and educators so that they can be replicated and serve as an example for other educators. For its part, the School of Culture, of the recently launched Ibero-American Institute for training and learning for the cooperation of the OEI, offers a virtual program of artistic education of the present, a training proposal that aims to debate current Ibero-American artistic education and generate a reflection process to contribute to the development of an artistic education connected to the now.

We live in a world full of images, videos, sounds and, ultimately, sensory stimuli that assault us. Being a girl or boy in a context like the current one is having access to a large amount of information that is attractive but that one does not know how to interpret. Artistic education is key to knowing how to look and educate in visual culture.

In Spain, institutions such as the Reina Sofía Museum or the Cerralbo Museum include work on visual culture with young people and teachers in their programs. Recently, the Reina Sofía has worked with teachers on workshops on contemporary creation, based on the museum's documentary collections, and the Cerralbo Museum, on the other hand, has given Cerralbo on memes, a workshop on sexuality, affectivity and gender based on museum works, memes and current music.

If we want a world with art and culture in which to continue enriching views and feeding curiosity and the ability to imagine, artistic education must be present in educational curricula. Educating the artists and audiences of tomorrow is a task that begins in the family, but is developed in the rest of the stages of life and in which educators are essential. Training educators in artistic languages will help generate critical perspectives in children to understand the visual society.

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