Contemplating Aesthetics in Places of Work: Implications for Thinking/Doing

• In Event: Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: Rallying Calls: Arts-Based Engagement Within Relational Communities

Abstract

This presentation highlights an arts-based research project wherein approaches to contemplating aesthetics in two places of work and related epistemological and practical implications are explored. Contemplative photography was investigated as one approach to contemplating aesthetics in two places of work. Workplace participants were invited to take photographs of what they considered to be aesthetic when they went about their everyday work practices. A selection of their photographs were then mounted in an exhibition in the workplace. This research explores how becoming attuned to the aesthetic aspects of our workplaces affects how we think and do our work. Research results will be useful within the fields of curriculum theory and practice, aesthetics, cultural geography, and work/organizational studies and practice.

Author

• Wanda Hurren, University of Victoria