This article outlines three actions for the supervisor, student and examiner to introduce a level of anti-racist consciousness in the journey of the Fine Art Ph.D. The steps are intended as ‘warm-ups’ within and towards more comprehensive, longer term strategies for individuals, departments, faculties and universities, to nurture communities of anti-racist researchers and make UK HE anti-racist. Change takes time, negotiations are unfolding and my brushstrokes are broad. But if the heart of any Ph.D. endeavour is about the development of critical insight, not just by the student into a knowledge area or problem, but about their own position as autonomous researchers, not just within their fields but the wider HE sector and beyond, an actively anti-racist agenda must be integral. I wish to critique my own position as a non-White researcher who has signed up to the neo-liberal, ‘post-race’ university. I welcome feedback, and seek to lay the ground for further work by myself and others. This is my call for researchers in Fine Art and UK HE at large to step up.
{"title":"Towards an anti-racist Fine Art Ph.D.: ‘Anti-racism productive antagonisms’ (ARPA) for the supervisor, student and examiner","authors":"Kai Syng Tan","doi":"10.1386/ADCH_00029_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ADCH_00029_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article outlines three actions for the supervisor, student and examiner to introduce a level of anti-racist consciousness in the journey of the Fine Art Ph.D. The steps are intended as ‘warm-ups’ within and towards more comprehensive, longer term strategies for individuals,\u0000 departments, faculties and universities, to nurture communities of anti-racist researchers and make UK HE anti-racist. Change takes time, negotiations are unfolding and my brushstrokes are broad. But if the heart of any Ph.D. endeavour is about the development of critical insight, not just\u0000 by the student into a knowledge area or problem, but about their own position as autonomous researchers, not just within their fields but the wider HE sector and beyond, an actively anti-racist agenda must be integral. I wish to critique my own position as a non-White researcher who\u0000 has signed up to the neo-liberal, ‘post-race’ university. I welcome feedback, and seek to lay the ground for further work by myself and others. This is my call for researchers in Fine Art and UK HE at large to step up.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"63 1","pages":"49-63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85894056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Institutionalized design education aims at training the human body to become a design body, a subject capable of designing according to aesthetic canons. In colonized territories, the modern canon predominates over indigenous, vernacular and other forms of expression. Manichaeism, utilitarianism, universalism, methodologism and various modern values are inculcated in the design body as if it did not have any. The colonization of design bodies makes young designers believe that once they learn what good design is, they need to save others from bad design. This research reports on a series of democratic design experiments held in a Brazilian university that questioned these values while decolonizing the design body. Comparing the works of design produced in the experiment with some works of art from the Neoconcrete movement, we recognize a characteristic form of expression we call monster aesthetics: a positive affirmation of otherness and collectivity that challenges colonialists’ standards of beauty and goodness.
{"title":"Monster aesthetics as an expression of decolonizing the design body","authors":"Rafaela Angelon, Frederick M. C. van Amstel","doi":"10.1386/ADCH_00031_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ADCH_00031_1","url":null,"abstract":"Institutionalized design education aims at training the human body to become a design body, a subject capable of designing according to aesthetic canons. In colonized territories, the modern canon predominates over indigenous, vernacular and other forms of expression. Manichaeism, utilitarianism,\u0000 universalism, methodologism and various modern values are inculcated in the design body as if it did not have any. The colonization of design bodies makes young designers believe that once they learn what good design is, they need to save others from bad design. This research reports on a\u0000 series of democratic design experiments held in a Brazilian university that questioned these values while decolonizing the design body. Comparing the works of design produced in the experiment with some works of art from the Neoconcrete movement, we recognize a characteristic form of expression\u0000 we call monster aesthetics: a positive affirmation of otherness and collectivity that challenges colonialists’ standards of beauty and goodness.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"78 1","pages":"83-102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83892761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Educators in universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand have the responsibility to ‘live and model’ the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. However, tertiary education has often treated the principles in an inauthentic way. There are few courses in art, design and communication in New Zealand that integrate the principles authentically. This article showcases features of a course ‐ Mahitahi | Collaborative Practices ‐ that engages with Te Tiriti principles by teaching collaboration from te ao Māori (the Māori world). Our findings draw from a focus group we conducted with academic staff who taught into a pilot iteration of the course. Three central themes emerged from the focus group relating to the issue of decolonizing arts education. First, that regardless of the educators’ intentions to design a course that privileges te ao Māori, the features of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s colonial reality are still present. Second, the students’ primary learning activity was principled reflection, where they successfully engaged with te ao Māori in an authentic way. Third, students’ connection to te ao Māori was jeopardized by designing part of the assessment that took on a Pākehā (non-Māori) world-view. Consequently, students may have missed the opportunity to engage more fully with educative experiences relating to lifelong learning. We argue that to maintain an authentic connection to te ao Māori, the curriculum should be consistently designed around principles embedded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
{"title":"‘Opening the door’: An authentic approach to decolonizing arts education in Aotearoa/New Zealand","authors":"Luke Feast, Christina Vogels","doi":"10.1386/ADCH_00030_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ADCH_00030_1","url":null,"abstract":"Educators in universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand have the responsibility to ‘live and model’ the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. However, tertiary education has often treated the principles in an inauthentic way. There are few courses in art, design and communication\u0000 in New Zealand that integrate the principles authentically. This article showcases features of a course ‐ Mahitahi | Collaborative Practices ‐ that engages with Te Tiriti principles by teaching collaboration from te ao Māori (the Māori world). Our findings draw from\u0000 a focus group we conducted with academic staff who taught into a pilot iteration of the course. Three central themes emerged from the focus group relating to the issue of decolonizing arts education. First, that regardless of the educators’ intentions to design a course that privileges\u0000 te ao Māori, the features of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s colonial reality are still present. Second, the students’ primary learning activity was principled reflection, where they successfully engaged with te ao Māori in an authentic way. Third, students’ connection\u0000 to te ao Māori was jeopardized by designing part of the assessment that took on a Pākehā (non-Māori) world-view. Consequently, students may have missed the opportunity to engage more fully with educative experiences relating to lifelong learning. We argue that to maintain\u0000 an authentic connection to te ao Māori, the curriculum should be consistently designed around principles embedded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"94 1","pages":"65-82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89764465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nat Mengist, Mariam Sidibé, Heidi R. Biggs, Tyler Fox, P. Thurtle, Audrey Desjardins
In this article, we offer a description of and reflection on our 2019 ‘creating alternate worlds’ course as a model for critical making in twenty-first-century higher education. Open to arts and humanities undergraduate students interested in creative research, our course used world building as a central approach to imagining alternatives. We found that explicitly centring Black and Indigenous perspectives helped support non-dominant students in their striving to realize possibilities beyond settler colonial visions of the future. We share our position in relation to decolonization and decolonizing pedagogies before describing the course at a high level and through an in-depth case study of an author’s research project. Our analysis of the course is presented via three axiological allegiances and three performative pragmatics. By discussing our political stance and a conceptual innovation that we term, ‘transcosmic potentials’, we conclude with insights for fellow educators. This pluriversal learning community opened a multiplicity of ‘portals’ to heterogeneous worlds, each with the power to fundamentally and forever alter all who pass through.
{"title":"World building: Creating alternate worlds as meaningful making in undergraduate education","authors":"Nat Mengist, Mariam Sidibé, Heidi R. Biggs, Tyler Fox, P. Thurtle, Audrey Desjardins","doi":"10.1386/ADCH_00028_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ADCH_00028_1","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we offer a description of and reflection on our 2019 ‘creating alternate worlds’ course as a model for critical making in twenty-first-century higher education. Open to arts and humanities undergraduate students interested in creative research, our course\u0000 used world building as a central approach to imagining alternatives. We found that explicitly centring Black and Indigenous perspectives helped support non-dominant students in their striving to realize possibilities beyond settler colonial visions of the future. We share our position in relation\u0000 to decolonization and decolonizing pedagogies before describing the course at a high level and through an in-depth case study of an author’s research project. Our analysis of the course is presented via three axiological allegiances and three performative pragmatics. By discussing our\u0000 political stance and a conceptual innovation that we term, ‘transcosmic potentials’, we conclude with insights for fellow educators. This pluriversal learning community opened a multiplicity of ‘portals’ to heterogeneous worlds, each with the power to fundamentally\u0000 and forever alter all who pass through.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"31 1","pages":"29-47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78720289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. Christie, Mathew Reichertz, Bryan Maycock, R. Klein
Erasing when drawing occurs for a variety of reasons. While the most obvious may be correction of mistakes, at other times erasers are used to create such things as highlights or marks that introduce particular aesthetic elements. When a drawing is made on paper, partial erasure ‘marks’ can provide a useful record of a drawing’s evolution. For the teacher, this historical record can be a catalyst for helpful commentary and criticism. While programmed to simulate an analogue eraser, in a digital environment the erase function can eradicate a drawing’s history with a single click. We studied analogue and digital tool use behaviours (including erasing) to compare the frequency of erasure and the effect of erasing on observational accuracy in adults between the age of 17 and 64 with various levels of drawing experience from less than two years to more than ten years. The study involved participants making one drawing on paper with traditional drawing tools and one drawing on a digital drawing tablet. We then had the drawings rated for accuracy. Among other interesting results, we found that erasing occurs with greater frequency when participants work in a digital environment than in an analogue one and that, while there were significant tool use differences between the environments, those differences did not result in differences in the accuracy of final drawings indicating the adaptability of our participants using different means to achieve the same effect.
{"title":"To erase or not to erase, that is not the question: Drawing from observation in an analogue or digital environment","authors":"J. Christie, Mathew Reichertz, Bryan Maycock, R. Klein","doi":"10.1386/adch_00023_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00023_1","url":null,"abstract":"Erasing when drawing occurs for a variety of reasons. While the most obvious may be correction of mistakes, at other times erasers are used to create such things as highlights or marks that introduce particular aesthetic elements. When a drawing is made on paper, partial erasure ‘marks’\u0000 can provide a useful record of a drawing’s evolution. For the teacher, this historical record can be a catalyst for helpful commentary and criticism. While programmed to simulate an analogue eraser, in a digital environment the erase function can eradicate a drawing’s history with\u0000 a single click. We studied analogue and digital tool use behaviours (including erasing) to compare the frequency of erasure and the effect of erasing on observational accuracy in adults between the age of 17 and 64 with various levels of drawing experience from less than two years to more\u0000 than ten years. The study involved participants making one drawing on paper with traditional drawing tools and one drawing on a digital drawing tablet. We then had the drawings rated for accuracy. Among other interesting results, we found that erasing occurs with greater frequency when participants\u0000 work in a digital environment than in an analogue one and that, while there were significant tool use differences between the environments, those differences did not result in differences in the accuracy of final drawings indicating the adaptability of our participants using different means\u0000 to achieve the same effect.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"17 1","pages":"203-220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73030638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article contextualizes and evaluates the pedagogical efficacy of a ‘block’ curriculum structure at Level 4 of a UK art and design degree course. The year has a distinctive, unique structure compared to its HEI’s central model of three concurrent twenty-credit modules. The article considers the block approach unfolding from the contextual changes at national and institutional levels that provided complex, multiple shifts and challenges. This article evaluates block pedagogy through considering course data, students’ critical reflections of their experience and external examiner comments. The evidence suggests that block pedagogy supports students – of which a significantly higher proportion are from lower-privileged backgrounds – and their outcomes, whilst improving retention, progression and overall satisfaction rates.
{"title":"Block teaching in art and design: Pedagogy and the student experience","authors":"Tom Slevin","doi":"10.1386/adch_00037_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00037_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article contextualizes and evaluates the pedagogical efficacy of a ‘block’ curriculum structure at Level 4 of a UK art and design degree course. The year has a distinctive, unique structure compared to its HEI’s central model of three concurrent twenty-credit modules. The article considers the block approach unfolding from the contextual changes at national and institutional levels that provided complex, multiple shifts and challenges. This article evaluates block pedagogy through considering course data, students’ critical reflections of their experience and external examiner comments. The evidence suggests that block pedagogy supports students – of which a significantly higher proportion are from lower-privileged backgrounds – and their outcomes, whilst improving retention, progression and overall satisfaction rates.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45388027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reflexive practices in art and design education","authors":"","doi":"10.1386/adch_00018_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00018_2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41559122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article describes the development and implementation of Jenny Moon’s ‘Graduated scenarios’ (2004, 2001, 2009) in the disciplinary context of media production. Graduated scenarios have previously been used to model different levels of critical thinking and reflection and have been based on situations and experiences that can be related to by a wide range of people. Our development of them in a specific creative disciplinary context, for use by students within that context, represents an evolution of the process, but we also consider the possible reception of such models in the context of debates around academic literacies and the degree to which they may be seen and used as contributing to an orthodoxy of expression. We acknowledge that this experiment in writing and pedagogy may be perceived as providing ‘exemplars of standards’, but argue that it actually models differing depths of thinking, and also opens up discussion about orthodoxies of academic writing. Our four models of different levels of critical reflective writing are provided as appendices, and may be used or adapted as necessary. The production of such graduated accounts is ‘effortful work’, but the process can help us (academics) to better understand our own, as well as facilitating learners’, concepts of depth and ‘good practice’.
{"title":"Graduated scenarios: Modelling critical reflective thinking in creative disciplines","authors":"M. Readman, Jenny Moon","doi":"10.1386/adch_00021_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00021_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article describes the development and implementation of Jenny Moon’s ‘Graduated scenarios’ (2004, 2001, 2009) in the disciplinary context of media production. Graduated scenarios have previously been used to model different levels of critical thinking and reflection\u0000 and have been based on situations and experiences that can be related to by a wide range of people. Our development of them in a specific creative disciplinary context, for use by students within that context, represents an evolution of the process, but we also consider the possible reception\u0000 of such models in the context of debates around academic literacies and the degree to which they may be seen and used as contributing to an orthodoxy of expression. We acknowledge that this experiment in writing and pedagogy may be perceived as providing ‘exemplars of standards’,\u0000 but argue that it actually models differing depths of thinking, and also opens up discussion about orthodoxies of academic writing. Our four models of different levels of critical reflective writing are provided as appendices, and may be used or adapted as necessary. The production of such\u0000 graduated accounts is ‘effortful work’, but the process can help us (academics) to better understand our own, as well as facilitating learners’, concepts of depth and ‘good practice’.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44177147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines perceptions regarding the purpose and delivery of tutorials in the architectural design studio that can support how students comprehend feedback. It draws on literature on ‘dialogic feedback’ and theoretical accounts of ‘dialogue’, framing the notion of the dialogic as one in which meanings and identities are realized through a multi-voiced state, questioning the extent to which studio-based tutorials can be considered dialogic. The study uses thematic analysis to reflect on 212 accounts of educators and students at a UK-based architecture school. The article highlights that a comprehension-oriented praxis as opposed to an assessment-oriented praxis can better enable dialogic practice, allowing learners to realize, position and comprehend their own voice amongst the divergent views. The article extends the critical body of work dedicated to evaluating feedback delivery in one-off review sessions, to the context of tutorials and their longitudinal implications on the learning experience.
{"title":"Dialogue in the studio: Supporting comprehension in studio-based architectural design tutorials","authors":"M. Tahsiri","doi":"10.1386/adch_00020_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00020_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines perceptions regarding the purpose and delivery of tutorials in the architectural design studio that can support how students comprehend feedback. It draws on literature on ‘dialogic feedback’ and theoretical accounts of ‘dialogue’, framing\u0000 the notion of the dialogic as one in which meanings and identities are realized through a multi-voiced state, questioning the extent to which studio-based tutorials can be considered dialogic. The study uses thematic analysis to reflect on 212 accounts of educators and students at a\u0000 UK-based architecture school. The article highlights that a comprehension-oriented praxis as opposed to an assessment-oriented praxis can better enable dialogic practice, allowing learners to realize, position and comprehend their own voice amongst the divergent views. The article extends\u0000 the critical body of work dedicated to evaluating feedback delivery in one-off review sessions, to the context of tutorials and their longitudinal implications on the learning experience.","PeriodicalId":42996,"journal":{"name":"Art Design & Communication in Higher Education","volume":"440 1","pages":"149-165"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83059771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}