Flying from Japan back to my home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I imagined the following dialogue with an unknown reporter:

Question: What did you do in Japan?
Answer: I attended the 9th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-9), held in Tokyo/Makuhari from July 31 to August 6, 2000.

Question: What was your role as a participant?
Answer: I have been invited to be the Chief Organizer of a Topic Study Group TSG 20: Art and Mathematics Education.

Question: What was the main purpose of this group?
Answer: To gather contributions from different countries and cultures,so as to have a great display of how Art interacts with Mathematics Education.

Question: How was it organized?
Answer: There were two 90 minutes Sessions and a very nice exhibiton that ran parallel to them.

Question: Tell me about the Sessions.
Answer: The first one was devoted to Visual Arts and Cultural History. The speakers were Javier Barrallo and Paquita Blanco (Spain), who presented an interesting mathematical simulation of gothic cathedrals, then Liu Keming (China) talked about mathematical issues in Chinese ancient painting and drawing and finally, Muneki Shimono (Japan) showed his program of teaching the cultural history of Mathematics. The second session was devoted to Mathematical education and its relation with Art. Julianna Szendrei (Hungary) talked about Art and Mathematics in primary teachers' training, then María V. Ponza (Argentina) showed a beautiful video about how to link Mathematics with dance, and finally I invented a fable related by a strange old man: the famous Golden Mean!

Question: And which were the conclusions of this group?
Answer: As the approach was quite multidisciplinary, we agreed that Art, in any of its many forms, has to be used as a main tool in teaching Mathematics to ANY student, not only to students engaged in artistic studies.

Question: What are your next plans?
Answer: Extending this globalizing idea to the research field, we are organizing the Third World Conference Mathematics & Design 2001 Mind/Ear/Eye/Hand/Digital at Deakin University, Geelong, Australia, 3-5 July, 2001. You are kindly invited to attend!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vera W. de Spinadel is a Full Consultant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is the Director of the research centre Mathematics and Design, which comprises a team of interdisciplinary professionals working on the relations amoung Mathematics and Informatics with Design, where the word "design" is understood in a very broad sense (architectonic, graphic, industrial, textile, image and sound design, etc.). She organized the First and Second International Conferences on Mathematics and Design. She is the author of several books and has published many research papers in international journals. She has received several research and development grants as well as several research and technological production prizes.