Nathan Marsh is a curator, educator, sound-maker, writer, and occasional performer currently working as the Education Curator at Freelands Foundation in London, England, via the unceded, ancestral territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓wətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples in what is now known as Vancouver, British Columbia.
In my work I seek to explore radical pedagogies and their potential to push boundaries and ultimately change systems. In this work, my interest is in using arts education and its position on the margins of traditional Western education systems to advocate for new ways of thinking about how we educate young people. In my pedagogy, I view art as a means to validate and promote the knowledge and experience of learners by encouraging creative, spontaneous and exploratory acts; using art as a vehicle for exploration. In this way, I hope to go some way towards decolonizing educational systems, breaking down the capitalistic norms of modern society for children and young people in ways that show that they matter, that their knowledge, needs, and interests matter beyond how they might be defined by a capitalist marketplace. Overall, I hope to encourage people, by advocating teaching through art, to enact positive social change towards the aims of decolonization, combating climate change, and achieving social and economic equality towards a more just society.
Nathan Marsh 