Why DARE?

The aim of this resource is to 'ease the flow' between contemporary art practice and current art education, by giving access to some of the images and ideas of an international selection of artists.

There is a recognised lack of resources for teachers and young people within formal education to learn about the critical and creative practices of contemporary artists from a diverse range of cultures and DARE aims to bridge that gap.

Many existing Web resources for education are based on museum collections or statutory curricula. The artists and works within DARE are arranged around themes, rather than by chronological order, practical discipline or geographic region. This non-hierarchical approach seems appropriate to a non-linear medium and will allow students and general users to make lateral links between artists, ideas, countries, disciplines and texts, just as contemporary practitioners do.

This approach does not ignore the formal questions which have traditionally preoccupied artists and art educators. But it does allow contextual issues to be considered at the same time as examining how artists have made their work. It also allows users to access work by artists who have not traditionally been looked at in the formal curriculum.

By using the Internet we are able to incorporate a large amount of reference and research material, at relatively low cost, so access to the site is free. We are also able to make hundreds of links to artists' sites and online education projects from around the world and to regularly update the net.art section to include the most recent projects.

Finally, by placing this resource online, users can contribute there own responses to the work and, through the discussion groups, engage in debate with each other.