If all this sounds confusing perhaps I should explain what I understand to be the task of an Animateur.
For me the role of Animateur is largely to energise peoples responses to the arts, preferably in a revelatory way. It is essentially concerned with the core activity of engagement with the Arts, namely ‘Discovery’ – it is gallery education writ large, in its broadest sense – That is, education before it becomes bogged down with dogma and notions of correctness, The kind of education that we all do everyday when we encounter valuable new stuff and re-evaluate our world view in relation to it.
Clearly the arts are pregnant with potential discovery, so much so that you could say someone would have to be comatose not to gain some insight or value. What should therefore be a simple task is in practice not so fluid, due mainly to the learned timidity, lack of ownership and in some cases outright fear that education writ small has instilled in many people concerning the Arts.
The job of the Animateur as I see it then, is to give total permission, to esteem the viewer as highly as the originating creator and to energise the discovery process to the point where peoples responses are on a par with the creators. Virtually reversing the roles of artist and audience. This way each encounter with the exhibition can potentially be as constructive, hopefully more so than the subject work itself. A timid inkling can be amplified into a brave deduction, an inconsequential insight, into a passionate engagement.
The first step towards achieving this as an Animateur (or an educator) is to never lead people to a safe place where you have all the answers and they appear to be empty containers, instead embark on an authentic discovery together, rely upon them, learn from them, trust them, they are bound to wiser in many respects.
I am aware that for some Arts professionals such an attitude can appear to threaten many golden calves that are held dear;
Artists are special, the audience will benefit from exposure to the work, excellence and expertise is important, critical ability is paramount, professional knowledge of the subject and context is essential.
If you look closely at what I have written, I advocate all of these things, for everyone.
