David Shrigley, an artist, said that children’s creativity is being obstructed by narrowing focus on science and maths and that STEM subjects should be expanded to prioritise the acts.
Shrigley, the Turner prize-nominated artist, argues that “Stem”, the short form of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, should be changed to “Steam” to feature arts. Adding arts to the STEM courses is the core of the rounded education.
He stated: “I think it is really important because if you talk to anybody, any professional within engineering, for example, in order to be a good engineer, you need to have creativity in order to do that job. Creativity is part of learning … It’s part of problem solving.”
Shrigley revealed a nine-meter Mantis Muse sculpture at the centre of a two-week alternative curriculum brought to his former school in Leicestershire. He hopes his giant sculpture will spark a national conservation about the importance of arts in education.
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He stated: “Art subjects are the only subjects that give kids agency to do something, because the way you learn to do maths, the way you learn to do science, is really just about … remembering information and being able to apply that information to problem solving,” he said.
“Whereas an art education – particularly fine art and visual art – is about setting your own path, setting your own parameters, creating your own project. And that agency is really important to kids’ development … I think that it’s a profound mistake to take the A out of the Stem.”
On Monday, students of Shrigley’s former school, Beauchamp College in Oadby, were confronted with a giant insect in the middle of their school’s art and design block with the artist’s lesson plan for the same day.
In England, A-level students increasingly dropped arts and humanities subjects for a limited number of stem-related subjects.
The Mantis Muse is the latest intervention by Shrigley, and it is made from steel and fibreglass. It uses a mechanical system to rotate the head and echoes his Life Model installation shown at the Turner Prize in 2013.
Shrigley is also known for his sense of humour. Last year, he collected 6,000 copies of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code and recycled them into a new edition of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
He stated: “George Orwell, I think, always planned it to be a caution.” “It wasn’t necessarily a parable of an existing state, but it was kind of a caution of what can happen when we don’t value our democracy.”
