Reflection on the piece ‘An a/r/tographic metissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice’ by Trish Osler et al.
Introduction
The piece explores the teaching possibilities provided by narrative approaches, by illustrating four practitioners and their use of self as a subject matter to inform their art identities as A/R/Tographers and the interconnectedness between those: artist, researcher and teacher.
What interested me is the auto-ethnographical element in each of these women’s stories and how these reflections became key directions in their artistry, as well as encouraging interaction with audiences by providing common ground for cross-pollination, through the scope of lived experience.
The process – the self as a pedagogical resource
Arianna Garcia-Fialdini’s reflections on her work with immigrants in Montreal struck a chord with me:
Overall, the artwork aims to cover the important gradual and collective process that was followed in its making, which ties into a much larger project of immigrant exploration of identity through art making and oral history. The approach and process holistically and metaphorically represent my lived experiences of art education and embody my living and growing identity as an art educator, researcher and artist.
(Osler et al, 2019)
Being an immigrant myself I related to her process, which made me consider my own experiences as a teaching resource. The last unit in my Year partly focusses on auto-ethnography, one of the primary elements in the conception process of their creative journeys. This session lecture is currently delivered by a researcher who specialises in the field. I feel it’s lacking is an activity that challenges students to apply what they have learned by actively recognising and applying their personal experiences as a potential starting point of their conceptual process.
To get a clearer idea I reached out to Manrutt Wongkaew a colleague on the Fashion Styling Course, specialising in therapeutic pedagogy through art practice. He outlined an activity he calls ‘Home’, inspired by the work of Kimberly M Jenkins and her work on fashion and race. In the activity students are asked to bring in photos and/or objects that have personal context for them, which are then discussed in class. These may be of family members, but also chosen family, your own tribe as he called it. The chosen family concept was relatable to me, as when I moved to London, I found comfort in queer communities being a gay man.
After reflection I worked out an activity plan:
- Students bring in a series of photographs of people that they know or places that are dear to them, this could be anyone or anything that has made an impression on their life.
- As an example, I bring in photographs and share these with the whole class as a starter. At this point these students have been with me for a whole academic year and I’m hoping that this not only scaffolds the activity for them but also creates the sense of a ‘safe space’ where intimate and personal elements can be shared.
- In groups of five, the students are to share and speak about the photographs and the context they have for them.
- By using the assessment brief and unit outcomes as reference, the students are then encouraged to feedback to each other on what story/experience could be a valid starting point of the ideation process.
Reflection
Through further consideration I have realised that the activity, even though useful in the context of the unit, also presents some stickiness in terms of ethics and role of the teacher:
- Trigger warnings will be required; speaking about intimate and personal topics can trigger emotions in the participants that may have been caused by trauma.
- Boundaries should be put in place: an alternative is for students to use an alter-ego if needed.
This concept also disrupts the traditional roles between teacher and students and potentially puts the teacher in an exposed situation which may be mis-interpreted. It would be interesting to further investigate the dialogue on similar pedagogies, ones where the teacher/student position is blurred, in a divergent design such as this.
References
Osler, T. Guillard, I. Garcia-Fialdini, A. & Cote, S. (2019). ‘An a/r/tographic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice’. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice. Volume 12, Numbers 1 & 2, Intellect Ltd Article.