CO-CORE contents

− Creating an International Art and Design Critiques Session −

Shinya Iwakura

Professor PhD (Business Administration)
Design Major, Graduate Program, Tama Art University
Program Representative and Management Supervisor
International Art and Design Critiques Committee

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I am pleased to announce that the graduate school at Tama Art University (Master's Degree Course／Doctoral Degree Course) has been selected for the Support Program for Improving Graduate School Education, a competitive grant program run by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology. This demonstrates the government highly evaluates the education program we have developed.

Our education program is titled “Fostering sophisticated human resources who can give cross-cultural mutual critiques”, with the subheading of “Creating an inspiring international Critiques Session.”

This Critiques Session marks an important turning point in our education as our students work hard to improve their research and works of art, and to give presentations before instructors and other students. Inevitably, students may feel nervous when presenting the works they have nurtured to an audience. In addition to giving presentations, I hope this experience will help them evolve and mature.

This Critiques Session is an appropriate place to give commentaries. It may arouse empathy or induce queries. There may be unexpected comments that may lead to ideas and innovations. And students may also be struck as if by lightning and inspired by words from their colleagues. That is why this critique committee is indispensable in the realm of art and design as it provides an important opportunity for our graduate students to show humane maturity.

In short, this graduate program was created as a highly specialized, sophisticated, and effective art and design program to stimulate one another as these two categories of art and design have much in common. Needless to say, specialized education flows vertically. Each student takes one step at a time during the rigorous graduate program which is similar to climbing a mountain.

A well-rounded education also requires human contact. We ensure this through participation in exhibitions and workshops and giving students opportunities to present their works voluntarily. Each student is expected to mature and develop rich human qualities and depth. In addition, other important elements in nurturing growth are the instantaneous creations conceived from unexpected works of art and meeting unexpected people. I consider this to be a horizontal axis which is a crucial part of art and design education.

This Critiques Session is the most important and attractive horizontal axis and is the merging point with the vertical axis. When we were focusing on the horizontal axis and making more use of this merging point, this committee was selected as the government grant program. We were delighted to hear that our efforts were recognized by the government.

There are two major aspirations in this program. One is to launch an International Art and Design Critiques Session on a global scale. As described in detail in the main section, there are many other graduate schools worldwide similar to this committee that are devoted to a horizontal education. The committee members will visit some of these institutions to create an active student-oriented international Critiques Session.

The other aspiration is to create an artistic index called “The Critical Note” on the Internet for all students around the world to participate in and to use. Students can discover elements in their works of art and deepen their understanding prior to the international Critiques Session. This digital bulletin board will also be extremely useful for presentations.

Of course, the instructors must be careful when designing the international Critiques Session and Critical Note and must consider the educational effects it will have. We will create an international workshop with graduate school instructors and students at an early stage in order to fully review this matter.

This idea stemmed from my personal experience. After graduating Tama Art University, I worked for Honda as a designer and went on to become a product management executive. I firmly believe that I developed within the various levels of all the critique committees in the company. I gained abilities by being in situations where I needed to make high-level decisions, deal with different opinions, and respond to challenging situations where consumer preferences differed between domestic and overseas markets. These encounters with people who held different opinions stimulated my personal growth.

Through these experiences, I have special feelings toward this educational program and am resolved to making this program work among the young students.

Finally, we have named this project “CO-CORE”. CO-CORE is a concept derived from “cocoa”, which has an image of being a warm drink, and the concept of cooperating within the core. We decided to call this educational program CO-CORE only recently, and I now feel much closer to this program.

We will be using this brochure to reach out to graduate schools and educational institutions in the world. I sincerely hope you will be interested in and participate in this program, and I look forward to seeing you at the committee meetings.