Philosophy
I am guided through life by deep senses of care and curiosity; these are the main engines of my approach to teaching as well. But what does it mean to care, and how do we foster curiosity? For me, as a teacher, caring begins with a consideration of community and asking a series of questions: Who are the people I am going to encounter? What is the environment in which we will gather and learn together? What knowledge, hopes and expectations are they bringing with them into the course? And where should we end this journey together, both in terms of the content and skills that I can teach them, but also in how they have understood they can use and apply that learning in the future?
The students’ appreciation of their own agency in applying what they learn with me is also crucial to my sense of care. I believe that creating an environment in which students take responsibility for their own precision and self analysis teaches critical skills regarding artistic professionalism. As artists, we have a duty of care towards our work and the work we do in the world. Qualities such as rhythm, color, silence and gesture, not only apply to analyses of artworks, but are equally useful in other social spheres including public policy, healthcare, law, or education. For me, training an artist is training a way of being in the world. We teach particular skills, tools and histories, but the way these can be applied are limited only by our imaginations. Our imaginations create new insights into the world and offer possible futures. Creating and nurturing learning environments in which students can fully appreciate their own agency and the potential it holds, is critically important to me as a teacher.
If imagination has one foot rooted in the soil of care, the other is set in a fertile bed of curiosity. Curiosity is our creative engine; learning environments can offer spaces in which it is nurtured and foregrounded, or in which it is given short shrift. As an artist and educator, I am a leader, and one of the most powerful ways to lead is by example. My leadership approach is grounded in curiosity and respect for the wisdom and experience that each person in the community of learners brings to the table. This sets the tone of the collective endeavor, and is itself the first step to nurturing genuine dialogue. Through this dialogue, whether it uses words or nonverbal means of exchange, learners are able to open up to new insights in the world around them, and to be encouraged to dive in to explore them.
Because imagination and curiosity require creative risk, they need to be balanced with clear communication and good boundaries in order for students to feel grounded. My teaching approach recognizes the need for balancing components such as these so that students can feel inspired and motivated to stretch themselves while feeling like they have the necessary safety nets to make their explorations safe and grounded. Sometimes these safety nets are as straightforward as always having a clear grading rubric and clear course objectives. Other times it can be giving very short and highly specific tasks that are meant to drill down on one skill or concept of learning. Each recipe for learning is specific to the arc of the course and the learners, however, the balance is always something that requires the teacher to be a constant gardener.
I am a big believer in using multiple teaching styles and diverse teaching strategies. No student learns the same, but also, everyone’s understanding deepens when they learn a subject or skill through a different lens. I am comfortable toggling between strategies that rely on text or archival practices with applied or experiential techniques. Having worked with students in arts conservatory contexts such as California College of Art and East15 Drama School as well as in liberal arts institutions such as Duke University and Emory University, I have seen this prove true both when working with pre-professional artist-students as well as with people who do not identify as artists, but who are learning a dimension of the field for their general education. Much like foregrounding curiosity and creative risk-taking requires strong boundaries and clear communication, this diversity of practice really works best when the teacher can demonstrate a combination of precision and active listening consistently across teaching styles.
In making new performances, it’s common practice to identify a simple story that guides a collaborative effort. It outlines who we are, why we are here, and what we are reaching for in our time together. In any class, I believe we are all engaged in a process of collective co-creation, making a new community, generating new learning, unearthing new insights and manifesting possible worlds. If we clearly establish the simple story of our collective learning endeavor, we can use this as a touchstone to guide us along our journey.
Experience
As an educator I teach and design curricula for arts professionals, in higher education, and in community settings. My focus is on contemporary performance and material-based practices and how we use the material of every day life to inform both form and content.
My work as a visual artist and performance maker has been seen internationally at venues including Tate Britain, de Young Museum, Lyric Hammersmith, Battersea Arts Centre, Woodruff Art Center and Standpoint Gallery, as well as in public spaces such as train stations, community centers, homes for the elderly, in streets, schools and online. In addition to my 20 years of professional experience working at the intersection of arts and civic practice, creating dozens of socially engaged artworks, interdisciplinary arts incubators and cross-arts festivals, I hold an MA in Performance Practices and Research from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and an MFA in Fine Arts at California College of the Arts. My recent time at CCA allowed me to delve into a diversity of material practices that includes painting, drawing, video installation, weaving and sculptural ceramics. Maintaining a social practice orientation, this material turn offered me a chance to build from my experience with complex communities and to expand my collaborative partners to equally include nonhuman and noncorporeal agents.
The diversity of my art practice is mirrored in my teaching experience. I have taught performance internationally as a lecturer and visiting artist in conservatories such as East15 Drama School (UK), liberal arts university programs such as Emory University, and in non-arts programs of study including medicine and conflict resolution (e.g. at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NY). I have taught sculpture, writing and socially engaged art as a teaching assistant at California College of the Arts. I have worked as an educator in community arts settings, including teaching ceramics (wheel throwing and handbuilding) to individual and large groups of adult learners in Athens, Georgia; leading forum theatre-based leadership workshops with teenagers in Gabon (in French); and teaching mask making, puppetry and film-making classes to school kids in England and the USA. I have designed and delivered mixed-arts curricula for adults with mental distress at CoolTan Arts in London, for those experiencing cognitive decline at Georgia Neurological Center (Macon, GA), and with people in recovery from substance abuse at Shop Front Theatre in Coventry, UK.
RACHEL PARISH 