Aj MacDonald

Borderlands: traversing spaces between art making and research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a picture of the relationship the researchers perceive between the art and research practices, unravelling the ways the authors shape and inform enactment of a purposeful nexus between art making and research. Design/methodology/approach – A hybridised methodology is adopted, where methods integral to narrative inquiry and a/r/tography are drawn together to generate a series of “pictures” of the interplay between research and artistry. Through exploration of critical events, creative prose and artefacts, the paper unfolds the parallels perceived and tensions encountered between the approaches to making art and conducting research. Findings – Borders can create a sense of calm and safety in allowing us to organise and contain information or matter, but they are also provocative in their potential to be crossed. Through this work, the authors chart the borders of the art making and research, and how, why and when these borders might be traversed to augment the...

Teachers' Curriculum Stories: Perceptions and Preparedness to Enact Change.

Abstract Within the specific context of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts, this paper explores how teachers of the Arts and teacher educators encounter and enact curriculum change. Adopting Ewing’s notion that curriculum is a complex web of varying stories and storylines that are impacted on by teachers’ underlying philosophy, we suggest that Arts teachers embrace the intent behind The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. This paper unearths and explores insights gleaned from teachers looking inward and reflecting on their own personal curriculum journeys. The learning dimensions of conceptualising, experimenting and developing, reflecting, resolving and communicating are applied to investigate the implementation of the new curriculum. This article shares data from a number of Arts teachers’ interviews with the authors in relation to their thoughts on the implementation of the new curriculum. Two key themes emerged from these interviews, these being navigating challenges and the implications of personal attributes in encountering and enacting change. Interestingly, a number of qualities associated with Arts practitioners such as creative and lateral thinking, resilience and flexibility emerge as significant contributing factors in regard to how teachers encounter, enact and become curriculum change.

THE ART OF PRACTICE: EXPLORING THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN ARTIST PRACTICE AND TEACHER PRACTICE

In recent times, the similarities and differences between artists and teachers, particularly in relation to artistic practice and teaching practice have gained the interest of an increasing number of researchers (Graham & Goetz Zwirn, 2010; Carroll, 2006; Davis, 2008; Stewart, 2003)

A/r/tographic inquiry in sport and exercise research: a pilot study examining methodology versatility, feasibility and participatory opportunities.

Abstract This research paper centres on a pilot study where a/r/tography, an arts-based methodology, was implemented into a sport and exercise research context. A/r/tography is yet to be employed in this particular research context; therefore, an emphasis is placed on exploring the versatility and feasibility of this methodology when applied to the field of sport and exercise. In addition, we explore whether a/r/tography offers anything new and/or unique in comparison to other arts-based research that has already been conducted in this domain. In the paper that follows, we outline what a/r/tography is; why it could be considered as a methodological approach in sport and exercise research; and how it has been used in other research domains such as the social sciences. The remainder of the paper is dedicated to outlining the method that was undertaken in the a/r/tographic inquiry. A/r/tography was implemented with one swimmer participant and focused on the ‘normalised’ yet destructive ‘slim to win’ body practices found to be occurring in swimming culture. Four interrelated parts of the a/r/tographic inquiry process are highlighted so other sociocultural sport researchers can understand how to implement the approach. The feasibility and educative outcomes of the methodology are also discussed. The final section of the paper outlines the learning outcomes for the swimmer participant after engaging with the a/r/tographic inquiry process. A critical discussion is also presented outlining whether a/r/tography offers anything new than other arts-based research.

Collaboration as metaphoric construct and guiding practice in art-making and teaching: A multimodal rendering

We examine in this article how the construction of a metaphor for collaborative practice can be used as a navigational tool to assist teachers in making meaningful connections between artists and teaching practices. Exploring collaboration in practice as a metaphor can help teachers expand their problem-solving capacities and allow them to cultivate authentic interaction between their artmaking and teaching practices. We also illustrate how collaborative practices, when enacted in both teaching and artmaking and conceived as a metaphorical construct can guide teachers toward identifying synergies between their artmaking and art teaching. To achieve this, we have drawn together a hybridized qualitative methodology to generate a multimodal rendering of intricately layered stories toward cultivating the inter-relationship between artist and teacher.

Arts-Based Research in Education: Becomings from a Doctoral Research Perspective

What is an appropriate structure for reporting a study exploring the transitory and reciprocal experience of becoming an artist and teacher, following creative constructivist paradigms, and adopting a hybridsed Arts-based, narrative and autoethnographic methodology?

Education in the Arts (3rd Ed), by Sinclair, C, Jeanneret, N, O’Toole, J, Hunter, M, Oxford University Press, 2018, 273 pp.,

The 2018 rendition of Education in the Arts is the third edition of the text, being just one year shy of encompassing a decade of change, contention and growth in the Arts education landscape across, predominantly, Australian contexts. A significant proportion of the authors are from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, working across a diverse range of Arts and teacher education contexts. Further contributions from Arts and education specialists from Deakin University, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Tasmania and threaded throughout, powerfully and pointedly.

74 AUD, ISBN: 978-0-195-52-794-0

In this paper, artist-educators representing six continents share their experiences conducting a/r/tographic studies or teaching courses with an a/r/tographic influence. Authors share the new understandings gained from this form of arts practice-based educational research and offer ideas for how we might gain from this methodology as we attempt to better understand current issues around the globe.