This article was developed from issues which arose in the dissertation titled Escola, Artistas e Docentes em Movimento: Encontros entre Arte Contemporânea e Educação (Fischer, 2014). The research site for this study was Escola Projeto (Porto Alegre, RS), which includes contemporary art in its curriculum and invites artists to work collaboratively. The article explores how teachers and visual artists work together to devise new ways to create art in the school, explore these approaches together and move away from practices that have become standardised over time.