Walking the Labyrinth of Artistic and Aesthetic Experiences: (Re)Emerging Personal and Professional Identity

• In Event: 61.059 - Montage, Collage, Bricolage, Pastiche: Inciting Representations of Arts-Based Educational Research Through Translations, Interpretations, and Transformations

Abstract

This presentation is about risk-taking and exploring the complexities of what is artistic and aesthetic experience at a deeply personal level. It is about growth and potential paradigm shifts that can be brought to teaching and learning. Through the image and metaphor of the labyrinth, the process of reflection, representation and transformation in relation to personal and professional identity and artistic practice is explored. The image of the labyrinth is a mirror for the inner self (West, 2011). The labyrinth offers short and long paths that lead to and away from the center: the heart of our being and the opportunity to examine deeply the landscapes of meaningful experiences that influence our lives. Drawing on Blumenfeld-Jones’ (2012) concept of aesthetic experiences - the wholeness of artistic doing as an embodiment “essential”- this presentation will use a multimodal collage approach using poetry, photography, as well as other forms of text and image to examine deeply the confluences that shapeshift our lived experiences.

As a teacher- researcher, viewing teaching as lived research (Binder, 2012) has been central to my arts-based research with young children. This interpretation has extended itself into the academy where the lives of children and older students have been intertwined through research. Students in my classes are challenged to think more deeply about the arts, imagination, dialogue and learning in deeper ways. It is this “wide-awakeness” (Greene, 1978) that is provoked through this convergence of theory and practice. Within my own pedagogy and research emerged the need to recover creativity as a “ceaseless imperative” of doing (Crowell & Reid- Marr, 2013, p. 67).

This research developed out of aesthetic and arts experiences that resonated during travels in Mexico and Bali. A bricolage of visual narrative (drawing on autobiographical narrative, see Clandinin, 2013) and phenomenology (Van Manen, 2001), allows for the emergent and interpretative design. Collage as inquiry (Butler-Kisber, 2008; Vaughan, 2004) offers the space for interrogating the process for questioning and connections to deeper meaning-making.

The “gathering of experiential material” (Van Manen, 2001, p. 63) is drawn from photographs, artifacts, journaling, engaging in art-making, and documentation of the processes through image and text.

Critical engagements of creating, processes, and representing in multiple forms inform conceptual explorations of (re)emerging lived experiences (Irwin & Ricketts, 2013). Through reflecting on past and present artistic and aesthetic experiences, the metaphorical journey of walking the labyrinth evokes and provokes ongoing shifts in teaching and research. In this presentation, new formations of identity are offered, including ways of positioning the artistic self where one can “raise significant questions and engender conversations rather than proffer final meanings” (Barone & Eisner, 2012, p. 166).

This presentation delves into past perceptions of identity and interconnects with present transformations that lead into future emergences. Challenging the individualistic tradition in research methods, this work articulates the importance of the collaborative spirit and the complexity of meaning-making. As teachers, practitioners, and researchers we evoke a more holistic and synergistic way of looking at the issues through arts-based inquiry (Leavy, 2012).

Author

• Marni Binder, Ryerson University