Making Art, Making Meaning: A Collaborative and Participative Practice

• In Event: Roundtable Session 57
  In Roundtable Session: Making Meaning Together: Unraveling the Research Value of Thinking Through Art Making

Abstract

Teachers need opportunities to both “...tell and retell their stories of teaching...” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995, p. 13) and to rupture or provoke “...the limits of the conventional and taken for granted…” (Greene, 1995, ), and a teacher-centred arts-based inquiry can provide the stimulus for such rich and provocative conversations (Irwin & Springgay 2008; Leitch, 2006). My own emergent, heuristic inquiry echoes the idea that an engagement in the visual can act as a catalyst for data-rich investigations and conversations about teaching and research. But to know this about myself is not enough: my current research questions whether these aspects of visual understanding are accessible to teacher/researchers who do not themselves have a visual arts practice. Theorists such as John Dewey, Elizabeth Ellsworth, Elizabeth Grosz, and Mark Johnson argue that the aesthetic experience is central to meaning making: that “...aesthetics is not just about art, beauty, and taste, but rather [is] how human beings experience and make meaning...” (Johnson, 2007, p. 212). This textual/visual paper outlines the findings of a qualitative study exploring art-making as both an investigative and reflective practice. Using mixed media painting as the vehicle for an a/r/tographic investigation, and ethnographic methods (interviews, small-group discussions, video and photographic recording) for collecting data within this collaborative and participative research project, the study documents the experience of educators from both elementary and tertiary levels of education as they explore the potential of art-making as a meaning-making activity. Results confirm that the making of art can indeed constitute a vital meaning-making process for teacher/researchers who art not otherwise art-makers, and suggest that the potential of visual explorations to provoke insights and understanding extends beyond the confines of an arts-based inquiry or fine arts curriculum.

Author

• Rosemary Burd, Vancouver School Board