Conference: Art Educators Unite.

Greetings from the land of no night –

I am going to be writing about the INSEA conference as well. Sorry this blog is out of order from the rest. Just to clarify the INSEA conference came before the Arctic Ocean.

The conference was actually pretty interesting. The best part about it was being around people who are like minded. So many times it is difficult to find those others who share your views or who actually understand what you’re talking about.

The conference took up four days (Monday-Thursday) this was one of the only times that we as a group did not have a scripted schedule where every detail is planned out for us. We were able to come and go as we pleased. We could attend any symposiums that we wanted to see or that had some special significance to our research or interests. We were given the option to ride the bus every morning at 8am and take it home around 5pm...needless to say we did not take the bus....ever.

The entire congress was in English but it was hard to understand most presenters. I am assuming that this a cultural difference but in the U.S. we have presenters who have engaging power points and they make eye contact and if they’re using notes it is done in a professional and secretive way. Not here. It was so different seeing how each person presented their information. Majority of the sessions I went to the person sat at the desk in front of us and just read page after page after page of notes with no images on the screen. We are art educators therefore we are most likely visual learners. We need visuals for us to be engaged.

As a group we presented on Wednesday morning at 9:30am. Our presentations went really well! They put us in a super small room and our entire group (35 ppl) took up the entire lecture hall. Our group was first (cultural sustainability) and we set the bar high. The other two groups took the stage and their presentations were equally as awesome. In comparison to all the other presentations and symposiums I attended, our was beyond unique. We told narratives and actually looked at the crowd (in contrast to the others that just read from the paper) and we also had engaging images....after our presentations there was a lot of interesting commentary that was vital. Not to toot our own horns....but TOOT TOOT!

Enjoy the photo-montage.

Part of our conference experience was spent at museums hob-nobbing with all the art folk. Mainly i was most concerned with when the food was going to be served but enjoyed the complementary champagne while waiting for all the speakers. long speakers = a lot of champagne.





This is from the opening of the conference. A traditional Suomi folk singer. She will make an appearance later.



These are traditional Finnish children during the opening ceremony for the Congress.



This is Rebekah looking thrilled at the first Keynote.



The small Suomi woman makes an appearance again!





These are the strange small fish that had bread crumbs on them.



These are the ladies who thought it'd be fun to the small breaded fishies.



This is the face of a lady who regrets her daring decision.



This is the introduction to our presentations! Yippie!



This is an image from sara's group. notice what is at the top of the slide show.



This is what happens when we are cooped in the same building for 12 hours a day.



Passing time at the conference...the usual.



fyi: Blueberry soup stains your teeth.



once again. stained.

ok that's all. moi moi. megan