"You Could Put Yourself in There": Media Arts as Embodied Learning

• In Event: 47.057 - Multimodal Art Practices for Well-Being and Storytelling

Abstract

This paper examines how embodied ways of knowing (Eddy, 2016), including spaced-based learning (Mills, Comber, & Kelly, 2013), and discussion grounded in creative practice were leveraged as key aspects of a week-long media arts residency in a large, urban school district. Indeed, participants worked in ways similar to the process of “actioning” (Moseley, 2016) and ensemble-building (Neelands, 2009) in theatre. Residency findings illuminate how embodied and social knowledge can decenter traditional forms of text (e.g., novels) while emphasizing multimodal learning. The research acknowledges the potency of corporeality and social relationships in media arts as a way of “tell[ing] powerful… multimodal narratives.” The findings are of interest to arts educators, school administrators, and policy makers committed to anti-oppressive arts education.

Authors

• Betsy Maloney Leaf, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Bic H. Ngo, University of Minnesota