Going Off Centre Without Losing Judgement
Relational Thinking and the Proportionality of Critique in Higher Arts Education

 

Format Description

The contribution will be presented as an academic paper combining conceptual analysis with analytically grounded examples from higher arts education. The presentation introduces relational thinking as a meta-competence that complements established frameworks such as critical thinking, global competence, and transformative learning by focusing on proportional judgement under conditions of complexity and limited steerability.

The paper unfolds in three steps. First, it diagnoses a structural tension in contemporary higher education: the intensification of critique and responsibility claims without corresponding capacities for proportional relationing. Second, it develops relational thinking as a theoretical heuristic and presents an analytical typology of typical failures of proportional judgement that contribute to affective overload, moralisation, and institutional blockages. Third, it outlines implications for teaching, curriculum design, and institutional governance, arguing that art schools must cultivate relational judgement not only in students but also in their own organisational practices.

The presentation is designed to stimulate reflective discussion rather than to offer prescriptive solutions. It invites participants to consider how art schools can go off centre without losing judgement—by holding ambiguity, responsibility, and institutional limits in productive relation. The discussion will explicitly connect pedagogical practice and institutional decision-making, encouraging dialogue across roles and disciplines.

 

Disciplines

Artistic Research · Higher Arts Education · Educational Theory · Curriculum Development · Institutional Governance

 

Abstract

Higher education institutions increasingly operate under conditions of global polycrisis, marked by overlapping ecological, political, social, and cultural disruptions. In this context, rising expectations for societal transformation, political positioning, and global responsibility often coincide with affective overload, moralised institutional processes, and escalating conflicts within universities and art schools. While critical thinking remains a cornerstone of higher education, its predominant focus on critique, deconstruction, and problematisation reveals a conceptual gap: the systematic ability to relate critique, responsibility, and action claims proportionally to structural conditions, institutional mandates, and temporal dynamics.

This paper introduces relational thinking as a theoretical heuristic of middle range that addresses this gap. Relational thinking is conceptualised as a form of judgement practice that does not seek normative moderation but calibration: the proportional positioning of critique in relation to scales of action, distributed responsibility, institutional capacities, and realistic pathways of transformation. Proportionality of critique is thus understood as a condition of transformative effectiveness rather than ethical restraint.

Drawing on an analytical typology, the paper identifies four characteristic forms of failed relationality that frequently emerge under conditions of polycrisis: scaling deficits, responsibility hypertrophy, complexity avoidance, and disembedded critique. These patterns help explain why heightened moral sensitivity often leads not to effective action but to institutional paralysis, affective exhaustion, or polarisation.

The paper further outlines didactic and organisational implications for higher arts schools and education. It argues that relational thinking must be cultivated both as a student competence—through multiscalar analysis, proportional judgement, and reflexive self-positioning—and as an institutional capacity, embedded in governance, decision-making, and educational design. Positioned within the ELIA Biennial theme Going Off Centre, the contribution proposes relational thinking as a way of decentring critique itself: shifting from moral positioning towards responsible relationing, and enabling art schools to function as bodies of knowing capable of holding ambiguity, responsibility, and action under conditions of uncertainty.

 

Biography

Elena Wilhelm is a scholar and practitioner in higher education development, governance, and educational theory, with a particular focus on judgement practices, relational thinking, and universities’ societal role under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. She holds a PhD in social and cultural sciences and has held academic and leadership positions across universities, universities of applied sciences, and art schools in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. She currently serves as Head of Higher Education Development at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), where she is responsible for strategic development, governance design, and institutional transformation. Alongside her institutional role, she is a board member of AQ Austria and serves on international evaluation and accreditation bodies. Wilhelm’s research and publications address higher education in times of polycrisis, professional judgement, critical and relational thinking, global competence, and organisational learning. Her work combines theoretical analysis with practice-oriented reflection and engages with questions of responsibility, proportionality, and world-relatedness in education. She regularly publishes in academic journals and contributes to international debates on the future of higher arts education and university governance. www.elenawilhelm.com

 

Keywords

Relational thinking; proportionality of critique; judgement practice; higher arts education; polycrisis; institutional responsibility; critical thinking; global competence.

 

Contact

Prof. Dr. Elena Wilhelm

Head of University Development

Zurich University of the Arts

elena.wilhelm@zhdk.ch

www.elenawilhelm.com