Creative Practice as Pedagogical Practice

How does creative practice using artistic inquiry, artist methodologies, and interdisciplinary collaborations inform pedagogical practices? We explore the essence of personal art practice as research—creative inquiry— and its link to pedagogical practices. How does theory, practice, research and artmaking blur boundaries with pedagogical practices? Drawing from narrative inquiry to deeply understand one’s experience (Clandinin, 2013) our narrative stories interplay with art-based practice using multiple forms of artistic inquiry. Collage pedagogy illuminates the range of disparate images individuals are bombarded with daily reinscribing images in artmaking to provided multiple perspectives necessary for critical engagement (Garoian & Gaudelius, 2008). Our practice as artists blends our work as theorist and practitioner where we theorize about our subject while also exploring and experimenting with how to frame our work conceptually (Marshall, 2014; Sullivan, 2005). We provide tools to foster creative thinking and conceptual skills inherent in art-based inquiry. One such tool is the research workbook. In education, they are sites for learning through visual and verbal exploration, experimentation and reflection. In art, they are tools for arts-based research that are often considered works of art themselves.

Clandinin D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Garoian, C. & Gaudelius, Y. (2008). Spectacle pedagogy: Art, politics and visual culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Marshall, J. (2014). Art practice as research in the classroom: Creative inquiry for understandingoneself and the world, The International Journal of the Arts,13-24.

Sullivan, G. (2005). Art practice as research. Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage.