Image credit: Dr. Jörg Bittner Unna
As a practicing artist, one is expected to have social media, it is a tool for spreading your work like no other. However, this has the potential to directly clash with the teaching profession. Having accounts on tictok, Instagram, or whatever else allows for the possibility of a crossover with students also using these platforms. One solution would be using a handle, but if you already have a functioning practice it is a hard ask to just throw aside the reputation associated with your name and current customers.
For an experienced artist who would want to pivot into teaching, it could end up being difficult. Especially if they have a background in work with more mature subject matter (for example paintings scenes from warzones). Students will look up that teacher’s name, and will likely find explicit content. But what lines do we draw with explicit content? Gore, horror, nudity?
I have a core memory from high school of the day we tackled the holocaust in History 12. I watched naked dead bodies thrown into mass graves with no censorship on the class projector. That experience was incredibly important for understanding just what World War 2 was and how horrific it had been. Adult topics are not necessarily bad for students but managing the line between self-expression and giving people the opportunity to take advantage of students must be clear. The issue lies in how we can define people’s work when art is at its core subjective.
