Art/Research International (Journal)
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272 research outputs found
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Unplugged Craftivism: A Story of Humans and Environmental Education
No full textThis is a written account of a keynote presentation given at the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario, annual conference in Canada. The conference themes included revival of the hand-made and Folk Schools. This article outlines the dramatic effects and hand-made props used to present an “unplugged” presentation that was simultaneously humourous and educational. The presentation began by drawing upon research from the field of anthropology that links the historical development of the brain with early flint-knapping skills. Following the introduction a rationale for understanding the importance of fibre and edge technology was conveyed. An exploration of hand skills was further explored by examining some materials and the design aspects involved in making clothing. The later part of the article describes the child developmental ideas that correspond with Waldorf Handwork programs and outlines the origin of two of North America’s largest Folk Schools. Short narrations occur throughout the paper and are used to emphasize the way making things with our hands link human’s environmental survival to human development and education. The paper concludes with three short stories that emphasize the importance of using our hands in conjunction with our minds to make the stuff of life we need to live
The Quilt Speaks: Crafting Gender and Cultural Norms in Hawaii
No full textWhen protestant missionaries first arrived in Hawaii in the early nineteenth century one of their first concerns was the nudity of the indigenous population and the introduction of cloth and sewing was an early priority. Their hope was that sewing would help turn these savages into appropriate Christians. However, with the introduction of fabric, thread, and metal needles, unexpected skills developed. Feminist scholars have often recognized that so-called “women’s crafts” hold important values. Quilting allows women to work collectively, to reflect on cultural and national values, and to offer political challenges. Analyzing the history of sewing in Hawaii and using the quilts themselves as texts, we can understand how Hawaiian quilts were able to fulfill many of the missionaries’ norms about Christian women, but also subvert aspects of the missionary belief system. Although the West gained influence in the islands, the Hawaiian quilt continued to voice the beliefs of native identity
Sailing into Australian Settler Fictions: Reflection on an Inquiry and Construction with Performance and Images
No full textThis is reflection on artistic inquiry as an expedition, construction and modification of a watercraft, where image-making occurs en route. The journey is from the Queensland Gold Coast to the fringes of the Simpson Desert, undertaken in May-June 2018. The place of boats in Australian inland exploration is considered. The author-artist situates performance/art-making as a post-structural practice. Research or inquiry is seen partly as a self-realization occurring after the process has already begun. The origins of the craft and the expedition are also described. From the images the artist imagines the search for Burke and Wills, the lost explorers, as it might be conducted by boat. Encounters with ‘Grey Nomads’ are considered. An inland sea is discovered, and the existence of the Peoples Republic of Wangkangurra imaginatively arises in the vacated fringes of the Simpson Desert. Key images of the emergent inquiry are provided and discussed. Discoveries and disruptions of settler fictions are made, concluding on the value of the approach in challenging cultural authorities
Storymaking Belonging
No full textSometimes data invites more of us. To be physically held and touched, through hands creating and crafting with matter, cultivating a closer connection to the fibres, threads, textures and sinews of data. Through touching and shaping the materiality of data, other beings, places and times are aroused. Here, we share the story of data that invited more of us and how this has spurred the creation of an exhibition titled Stories of Belonging with Indigenous and non-Indigenous artist/scholars for an arts festival in Queensland, Australia. This work by the collective, SISTAS Holding Space, deeply interrogates our ontological positionality as researchers, in particular what this means in the Australian context – a colonised nation populated through waves of migration. The scars of colonization, migration and shame are held and heard through Black and White Australian women creating and interrogating belonging alongside each other – listening and holding space for each other. We air the pains of ontological destruction, silencing, disconnection and emptiness. Through experimental making research methodology, we argue the primacy of storying and making, and for provoking resonant and entangled understandings of belonging and displacement
Multitextual Literacy in Educational Settings: Contextual Analysis and the Dab
No full textLiteracy is more directly linked to language arts than the visual arts even though both disciplines demand a high level of proficiency knowledge. This article examines how Feldman’s (1970) art criticism model, applied in visual arts and aesthetics, and Fairclough’s (2015) critical discourse analysis (CDA), used predominantly in literacy research, imbricate to reveal a multitextual literacy approach to gesture as an extension of utterance. Transdisciplinary textual analysis, supported by Bakhtin’s theories on addressivity and social language construction (1986), critique both cultural appropriation and media literacy. Gesture, as an extension of utterance, transpired from witnessing a random gestural act, blurring textual boundaries in a decoding process to suggest multiliterate awareness in learning ecologies. Art criticism reflection and CDA reveal methods for examining communication processes within cultural contexts and, as a result, suggest integration into educational settings as vital tools for conscientious textual decoding praxis
A Review of Louise Gwenneth Phillips and Tracey Bunda\u27s "Research through, with and as Storying"
No full textThis is a review of Research Through, With and As Storying, a book that explores how Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars can engage with storying as a tool that undoes conventions of research and gives voice to the marginalised in the academy.
 
In the Dark
No full textThe artist’s duty is to “reflect the times,” said Nina Simone. Poets too, have this political duty. As a queer Black woman, I share my lived experience(s) as a political form of engagement and resistance, both in writing and onstage. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s (1984) text Sister Outsider, this piece of personal performance poetry explores Della Pollock’s notion that performative writing is citational. Blending references to white poets such Emily Dickinson with allusions to writers, artists, and theorists of color, this piece makes space for black culture in the academy and recounts my return home after a period of self-imposed exile. It surveys the liminal space between the dark of writing and the light of performance and also critiques the hierarchal academic structures that subjugate knowledge, people, and spoken word poetry. It was originally written and performed in a show entitled Greyscale: Performing Across Difference, in the Marion Kleinau Theatre, in March 2017
Not all Who Wander are Lost: A/r/tographic Walking as Contemplative Inquiry
No full textThis essay explores the relationship between walking and writing, utilizing performative poetry as an a/r/tographic mode of contemplative inquiry
Drawing Upon Finnegans Wake
No full textLOTS OF FUN WITH FINNEGANS WAKE is my six-year project to annotate / illustrate / disrupt the 628 pages of James Joyce’s final book. I’ve been reading Finnegans Wake off and on for about 40 years, and I consider it to be the most multi-layered, protean, and playful collection of words that we have. As a way to explore the book’s circular, recurring, enigmatic pathways, I am involved in the process of transmediation – I am turning some of its words into visual images and some of its linguistic images into words. This project is a way for me to indulge my natural inclination to connect the intellectual and the illustrative, the visual and the verbal
A Review of: Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place
No full textA review of Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place, an edited book by Pauline Sameshima, Alexandra Fidyk, Kedrick James, and Carl Leggo, and published by Vernon Press, 2017