Curriculum of Departure: Learning to Leave an A/r/tographic Community of Practice

• In Event: Material and Digital A/r/tographic Explorations in Community

Abstract

Objectives:

The ebb and flow of affective intensities are adjusted obliquely in attending to a post-PhD journey of moving home, from across the country. This writing traces the literal and figurative steps I have taken in learning to leave a place and a community I love deeply. In communities of a/r/tographic practice, a/r/tographers are often engaged in the building of relationships within a community. Yet, what is leaving like?

Theoretical Perspectives: In an autobiographical reflection, I share my thinking and process upon leaving an a/r/tographic community of practice that I treasure. I experienced what Han (2009/2017) calls de-narrativization, as I did not know what kind of narrative tension held fragments of my time together now that I have wrapped up a major story arc in my life. For Han (2009/2017), “the lack of temporal gravitation is what throws life off balance” and “when life loses all rhythm, temporal disturbances occur” (p. 33).

Methods and Data Sources: With this writing, I seek to steer events that have whizzed around onto clearer narrative paths, so that I can—once again—come to “an experience of duration which makes life more fulfilling” (Han, 2009/2017, p. 34). Narrative reflections, images and their juxtapositions capture a profound journey that is anchored in arts based research.

Results: The intimate learning and sharing unfolds a process that offers a wide range of affective, material, and relational data with walking practice, digital photography, and writing. In this intimate writing on movement and materiality, and their embodied implications on rhythm and weight, I seek and share alignment between self and world through narrative gravitation and a pronounced articulation of time.

Scholarly Significance: Underpinning the work is a deep relational understanding of the world. Rather than fostering codependency, the notions of collaboration, community, and relationality encourage the growth of self-determining persons with healthy self-esteem, feelings of safety, sense of identity, and independence. An a/r/tographic community fosters individual strength so that each person can become a pillar in the teaching and mentorship of others in loving ways too. Through this curriculum of departure, I share a movement toward new openings, with an attuned wide-awakeness to the rhythm I aspire to live and create, and to the amount of weight I want and need to carry.

Author

• Nicole Lee, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author