Reflection on the Arts Awards

When we tackled the TOK Art as an area of knowledge, our class was divided into groups of three that had to pretend that we were a committee deciding on an award for our respective art competitions. One group had to create an award for a music prize, another had to do a literary prize and my group had to do a sculpture prize. We had to consider factors such as eligibility, judging, funding, and the award itself. It was a challenge having to come up with objective standards.

• What would you change in your own award, and why?

I think we could change the prerequisites for eligibility as they are a tad restrictive; we did this out of necessity so it would be easier to narrow down on a definitive winner. We could also have several themes rather than a single one so the artists could have more free reign. We need to be more specific with the judges as well since they have the hardest task of making the final decisions.

• What did you realize about others’ awards? Questions you might raise?

The other groups definitely considered things such as age, inclusivity, accessibility, context, biases, and different perspectives. Of course, varying art mediums have varying needs, so what may be required in visual art may not necessarily apply to other art forms. The questions that were posed included:  Who are we to decide which artwork is better? What is good art? What makes one qualifies to judge art? What makes one an expert in art?

This activity was a good exploration of what we knew about art and what we have yet to know.