Modernization of Art Education: Program Principles of the Formal Art Workshop and the Multimedia and Visual Art Course at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture

The paper highlights the history of the creation of the Formal Art Workshop (FAW) and the educational-professional program Multimedia and Visual Art (MVA) at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAOMA) initiated by the authors of the article, Andriy Bludov and Andriy Tsoi. In order to comprehensively outline the subject, the changes in art education throughout the history of NAOMA, as the successor of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts founded in 1917, were analyzed. The consequences of Soviet cultural and educational policy in Ukraine and the relevance of modernizing art education in accordance with the European integration strategy are outlined. The break from socialist realist methods in the educational programs of higher education institutions during the first 25 years after Ukraine gained independence and the need for more systematic changes are discussed. The phased expansion of NAOMA’s capacity to train artists able to work in contemporary art is shown, starting from 2019 when the FAW was created within the Department of Painting and Composition. The reasons for opening the MVA at the Department of Scenography and Multimedia are identified. A comparative analysis of FAW and MVA is conducted, with an emphasis on their program principles, teaching methods, and the nature of the tasks assigned to students. The exhibition activities of FAW and MVA and the individual achievements of their students at both local and international levels were described. The significance of the establishment and activities of FAW and MVA was analyzed in the context of the history of the modernization of Ukrainian art education in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.