Experimenting and learning through images

In this post I talk about my photographic art practice and how this has allowed me to produce new relationships between myself, other people and the world. I then discuss the role of visual images in artistic experimentation and how this interconnects with the use of visual imagery in pedagogical documentation or inquiry-led learning practices in early childhood education.

Louisa Penfold, ‘Ophelia (Save yourself).’ C-print.

Experimention and learning through images has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. Since I was first taught photography at school (thank you Georgina Campbell) I have experimented with a myriad of photographic processes including medium format cameras, scanners and digital photography. My photos have focused on the relationship between landscape and the subject matter’s psychological world. Creating and thinking through images has allowed me to experience things and learn in a way that could not be done with words. Learning new artistic skills, techniques and concepts has also been important in opening up new creative possibilities for further exploration. Over the years, this process has led to the emergence of new thought processes, feelings, understandings and artistic skills, generating new starting points for further experimentation.

Louisa Penfold, ‘In the garden I have done no crime.’ C-print.

I think that my love of image making and my love of children’s education stems from the same place: a relentless enthusiasm to continuously think and learn through the world in new and different ways. Art has been one of the greatest forces for producing deep thinking and feelings in my life. I would love children to have this opportunity too.

Louisa Penfold, ‘Untitled.’ C-print.

Experimentation and learning through visual imagery is also a huge part of pedagogical documentation. When I take a photo or video of a child’s research process in an art museum, I always consider the lighting, the colours, the composition and wait for just the right moment to press the shutter to try and capture a particular energy, emotion or idea. To me, documenting through visual imagery is an aesthetic process. At other times, it does feel more ethnographic or slightly more removed. Recording. Logging. Taking field notes. Archiving pictures to look back on later. I guess that both artistic experimentation and pedagogical documentation are creative and analytical processes.

I often get asked if I use my own art practice with children. I always say yes and no. The inquiry-led process that drives artistic experimentation is a non-negotiable component of any children’s activity I am a part of. At the same time, I am not interested in doing photography workshops with children. I don’t really know why.

Louisa Penfold, ‘The Dancer.’ C-print… My love for Caravaggio knows no limits

I am not exactly sure how my photographic practice and my work with children is connected but I know that it is. I guess they are related in a way that all things that are incredibly important to an individual are connected. I recently read a quote by the artist and poet Etel Adnan that said, “… my writing and my paintings do not have a direct connection in my mind. But I am sure they influence each other in the measure that everything we do is linked to whatever we are, which includes whatever we have done or are doing.” I totally get that.

NGV Triennal in Melbourne, Australia

This post looks at the National Gallery of Victoria’s slick new ‘Triennal’ blockbuster exhibition, including the gallery’s dedicated children’s space ‘Hands on: We make carpet for kids.’

I have spent the past few weeks in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia escaping the bleak English winter. During this time I have been fortunate enough to break up my thesis writing with beach swims and time with family and friends.

Last week I headed into Southbank to checked out the National Gallery of Victoria’s new contemporary art exhibition, Triennial. The exhibition is the first of what I presume will be a series of exhibitions held every three years that aim to showcase ‘the world of art and design now.’ The day I visited, the gallery was absolutely heaving with visitors young and old. I had actually never seen so many people inside an Australian art museum before. It was great to see the gallery so full of life.

The Triennial features an array of new modern and contemporary artwork from around the globe. There are also a bunch of newly commissioned, super slick, very Instagram-able installations including Kusama’s ‘Flower obsession,’ Ron Mueck’s ‘Mass,’ teamLab’s “Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement’ and Alexandra Kehayoglou’s beautiful ‘Santa Cruz River.’ The show is ambitious, polished and lively.

Pictured: teamLab ‘Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement’ (2017)

Yayoi Kusama ‘Flower Obsession’ (2017)

Ron Mueck ‘Mass’ (2016-2017)

The Triennial’s dedicated children’s space, ‘Hands on: We make carpet for kids’ (2017) was comprised of four parts: a colourful wall where children could stick on triangular velcro pieces, a ‘maze challenge’ where children could poke pieces of rope through a plywood wall, an area where children could stick styrofoam pool noodles onto wooden knobs and a floor activity where children could make patterns using colourful wooden triangles (pics below). At first glance, the space looked immaculate. Lots of colours, beautiful wall-mounted installations for children to look at. The space was packed with young families who all seemed to be having lots of fun. It was also really inspiring to see the gallery making such significant financial investments in children’s activities. There appeared to be a gallery staff member stationed at each section greeting people and sorting materials.

At the same time I felt like something fundamental was missing from the children’s activities. While in the space I began to consider what exactly it is I love about art and learning. To me, the arts and education have allowed me to continuously think about and connect with the world in new and different ways. Artistic experimentation has allowed me to produce new relationships between myself, other people, ideas and the world around me. Looking at the children’s activities, I felt like there were limited opportunities for children to engage in deep artistic and creative experimentation. For example, in the rope activity, children were presented with small pieces of the material all cut to the same length. An instruction sign told people to put the rope into the holes. What children can and cannot do is nearly entirely pre-constructed and fixed.

I am really interested in children’s learning environments that are designed to encourage creative experimentation and are responsive to what emerges from this. For example, selecting materials based on their ability to transform (for example, clay has the ability to change form through adding or removing water), introducing art tools, equipment, artistic techniques or different conceptual resources that could encourage people to extend, challenge and complexify their thinking through art over time.

At the same time, everyone seemed to be having fun and perhaps that is the most important thing. Also, due to the sheer volume of visitors, the gallery may not have been able to cope with children spending more than two minutes on each activity.

The NGV Triennial is a fun museum experience. There are also some incredible artworks in the exhibition. High-brow theme park or contemporary art show – you decide!

The year gone by and the year ahead

Now that I have finally recovered from my New Year’s Eve hangover, I am getting excited thinking about the year ahead. I have been musing about different conferences to attend, what projects to kick off, where I will travel to and of course, the plan of attack for writing my PhD thesis.

‘A handful of dust’ at Whitechapel Gallery, August 2017.

2017 was a huge year for me. I spent the majority of it in London undertaking my PhD fieldwork in partnership with the Early Years & Family team at Tate. During this time, we were investigating the possibilities of using pedagogical documentation as a mode of curatorial inquiry in the learning department at the art museum. This research extended on results of fieldwork undertaken at the Whitworth Art Gallery in 2016 that looked at the same processes in their early year’s Atelier programme. So many new ideas and results emerged throughout this time. The action research methodology that I drew upon was fabulous but also demanded a lot of continuous hard work to keep the inquiry moving. But I made it!! And I am so happy to now have such interesting data to think through in the final thesis. I am also grateful to have worked with such a creative bunch of learning curators, artists, teachers, children and families on this. Stay tuned for the sharing and disseminating of results later in 2018.

Looking forward to the year ahead, I am in the process of re-vamping this website. Once this is done, I aim to write a weekly blog post. Since I started this website in February 2016, I have been somewhat inconsistent in delivering content. There are aspects of blogging that I have struggled to navigate. Mainly around what content I should post publically and immediately, what content I should use for journal articles, what content I should try to save for a book and what content I should just keep to myself… fellow motor-mouth readers I know you feel my pain on this last one. I have also found writing pretty difficult over the past couple of years which is also something that influences my enthusiasm to blog. I am totally confident and comfortable in my skills making art and working with young children however there are times where I have found writing quite boring and lonely. I also occasionally find it a bit wimpy too. As in, someone can intellectually think about something but they do not necessarily need to embody and live it. However, the more I begin to approach it as a creative process, as a way of philosophically thinking about the world, the more it grows on me and the more I want to do it. So, I am pleased to say that I will endeavour to update this website weekly throughout 2018, every Thursday at 9am GMT.

I also hope to continue to connect with others that share my relentless enthusiasm towards art, play, children and pedagogy. I am particularly interested in artists, educators and people working with children in art museums that are exploring practices around emergent curriculum, relational pedagogy and experiential learning. I have also started a new Instagram account! You can follow along at @louisa.penfold for even more art, play, children, pedagogy action.

Woop!

Beyond this, I am also beginning to think what lies ahead for me once I complete my doctorate. What country this may be in, what sort of institution I would like to work for. No definitive answers have made themselves known to me yet. I think I will always toe the line between researcher, learning curator and artist. I am sure what happens next will again be a hybrid of these things. I am not sure if full-time academia is right for me just yet. I miss being around children on a day to day basis, making art and working as a part of a creative team. I guess we will see what 2018 brings.

Happy New Year to you all. I think it is going to be a great one.

Love Louisa xx

The academic/non-academic gap in children’s art education

In this post I consider the gap between academics/non-academics in children’s art education. A contestable claim but something I believe is worthy of further discussion. I reflect upon my experience of moving from working as a full-time learning curator in an art museum to full-time PhD researcher and what I have learnt along the way. 

Before starting my PhD, I thought I knew a reasonable amount about early childhood education theory. I had studied an array of undergraduate education subjects at university, worked with researchers in art museums, attended the occasional conference and regularly read new books and articles that came recommended from colleagues. Upon commencing the PhD I very quickly realised that there was an entire universe of theories and ideas that I had never encountered. I love this part of research, there is something so motivating about seeing the world as a place where so much more can be discovered and created.

At the same time, the more conferences I attended, the more books I read and conversations I had with academics, the more I realised that so much academic research is read and used by other researchers and simply does not make it into a form that other non-academics can use in their everyday practices with children. On the flip side, so much amazing knowledge and expertise produced and held by people working directly with children never makes it into the academy. Instead this sort of knowledge is produced and shared through feelings and non-verbal actions.

Possibly the most pronounced example of the gap between academics and non-academics I have come across is in relation to new materialism. I find the ideas of Karen Barad, Jane Bennett and Deleuze & Guattari really interesting and highly applicable to children’s art education. Especially in relation to the consideration given to the role of matter such as artworks, materials and tools in the production of knowledge. At the same time, it has taken nearly 12 months of continuous reading, thinking and discussions to begin to really understand the key terms underpinning new materialism. Perhaps I am just a slow thinker or perhaps these are really complex ideas that are difficult to explore in everyday practices. I also find it slightly ironic that much of the language used in new materialism (i.e. assemblage theory, intra-activity, affect, onto-epistemology) is quite inaccessible to that vast majority of people working directly with young children. At the same time, what is fundamentally being considered is the production of knowledge that is not solely based on language.

I wonder how such a gap in the knowledge of academics/non-academics has formed. Perhaps the ‘output’ of academic research (journal articles, academics texts) is not in a form that others working directly with children can use? Or when toolkits or resources are produced for practitioners the research has not been intertwined with practice enough to allow it be easily applied.

Without question there are teams of researchers and practitioners working brilliantly together to produce rich, multifaceted ways of thinking and practices with children. There are also people who approach both practice and research as interconnected fields through working as ‘practitioner-researchers’ – a hybrid that offers a myriad of possibilities for universities, practical industries and beyond.

I think I will spend the rest of my career exploring the grey area of being a practitioner, a researcher, an artist, an educator and a curator. I wonder how I will continue to explore and combine these in different professional situations. Something I find so exciting about the process of pedagogical documentation is its ability to intertwine theory and practice in everyday contexts, breaking down the binaries such as teaching/learning, adults/child, individual/group and research/practice. I wonder how this process could be further used in art museums to bring together academics and non-academics.

In conversation with Reggio Australia’s Chris Celada on art, galleries and the Hundred Languages of Children

This post is an extract of a conversation between myself and Chris Celada published in the current edition of ‘The Challenge,’ Reggio Emilia Australia’s quarterly journal. Chris is a teacher and Reggio Australia editorial board member. The article accompanied a case study in which I discussed the pedagogical and artistic underpinnings of an early year’s paint/coverage art studio, or ‘atelier’, run as part of my PhD fieldwork. The Atelier was shaped around an inquiry into Peter Lanyon’s ‘Glide Path’ painting. This conversation offered both Chris and I the opportunity to dig deeper into the philosophies, strategies and practices of working at the intersection of art and pedagogy. 

Chris Celada: I am excited about the opportunity your article offers for deeper thinking and reflection. For many teachers, art is a ‘problem’ seeing themselves as not ‘artistic’. They provide ‘art’ experiences for children but perhaps do not recognise the power of ‘art’ to influence/ construct/challenge thinking for the children but also for themselves – to experience the power of ‘languages’. It is for these reasons that I think your article is very powerful. As I read your article, a variety of ‘questions’/ points of interest came to mind and I would be interested in what you might like to consider further as well. So as they say, let’s start at the beginning!

I saw links between your processes and those from the Reggio Emilia approach that I have read about, observed and now seek to practise. In particular, I noticed the cross-over with the project Children, Art, Artists: The Expressive Language of Children, the Artistic Language of Alberto Burri (Reggio Children, 2004) and Mosaic of marks words materials (Reggio Children, 2015).

You started your research with the adults considering Peter Lanyon’s painting ‘Glide Path.’ I discovered that this painting is one of a series of paintings made in response to his experiences as a glider pilot. When I knew that, I had a much more powerful way of entering into this painting. His larger body of work is beautiful and evocative, for example ‘Thermal’ (1960), ‘Drift’ (1961) and ‘Soaring flight’ (1960).

One reviewer compares the sudden changes in colours and textures, tilting axes and sharp changes in direction of marks in the paintings to the flight experience – an experience that in the end killed Lanyon. Another describes Lanyon as being “compelled to push things to extremes”, and rather than being concerned about form, space and colour, his painting are “about living and feeling outside the canvas”. Perhaps he would have felt empathy with Reggio Emilia where disruption and working in the unknown is so important.  Peter Lanyon ‘Glide path’ (1964). Oil on canvas.

The first area I would like to dig deeper into is the process of ‘reconnaissance’ that Malaguzzi describes in the The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach (Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1998, p. 88). How did the group’s decision to focus on ‘coverage’ and its relation to paint emerge from the ‘reconnaissance’ or pre-planning stage? I am curious to hear about the thinking and intentions in this process. Why was ‘Glide Path’ selected? What did you discover about line, form, shape and coverage in considering the painting? Why was ‘coverage’ selected as the focus? What is meant by ‘coverage’ when an artist talks about it? I look forward to reading your comments and what you are interested in discussing.

Louisa:  I really enjoyed reading your questions and thoughts, thank you for sending them through. This conversation is a great opportunity to reflect upon different ideas. To me, discussing theories and practices with others is very useful in bringing together different perspectives and expanding ideas. Or even a bit like shining a torch on different spaces that might not usually see the light!

Before I talk about Peter Lanyon and the Atelier, I will briefly mention some key ideas underpinning this work. At the core of this research/practice is an investigation into how art can be used to construct different ways of thinking. This may include new thought processes, different understandings and relations towards oneself, other people and non-human things like artworks, materials, space and culture. Then to continuously question these understandings, as well as the process of how we arrived at them. This is both a personal and collective process full of contradictions, politics, ethics and emotions… Extending upon this, here are some thoughts in response to your questions:

‘Glide Path’ captures a sensation of flow, freedom and elevated movement over surfaces, space and earth. For me, this painting cannot be reduced to a bird’s-eye representation of the English countryside. It is a feeling of turbulence, rushing motion and emotion, things colliding and intersecting in chaotic ways in a changing moment – a sense of soaring and drifting in unrestricted ways but always with the possibility of falling from a great height. This complexity of thought and affect offered a rich starting point for deeper collective inquiry amongst the team.

Lanyon’s use of paint made it a natural fit to bring into the Atelier as it presented the possibilities for rich tactile and sensory experiences for young children and their families. As a team, we were not solely interested in teaching children about the techniques and properties of paint, such as how to roll it or how to use a paint brush, although these are very important, but to also consider the thought process that this material might provoke, how it might challenge children and their families to think differently through experimenting with it. We were thinking about what a material or artwork may suggest or invite…

‘Glide Path’ offered many possibilities to connect and explore an array of artistic concepts such as line, form and shape. There was something in the combination of ‘coverage’ and ‘flying’ that made a particularly strong pairing worthy of deeper investigation. The action of ‘covering’ seemed intricately connected to a feeling of gliding. Just like the wind changes a glider’s speed from rapid to slow, thought patterns and making in the Atelier continuously flux through different rhythms too – from grand outbursts of paint pouring to gentle drips, quiet consideration and stillness. Like the creative process, the act of gliding is unpredictable – plunging into the unknown, an awareness of freedom, movement but also the possibility of stagnation, disappointment and falling.

The concept of ‘coverage’ was approached as an invitation for children and their families to think with and through. Evidencing a linear relationship between introducing the concept and a child ‘learning what this is’ was never the goal. Instead we began to consider the possibilities for research – social, emotional, aesthetic and intellectual research – with and through the concept and the material.

Such explorations of ‘coverage’ are also philosophical ones. What is presented? What is concealed and protected? What is revealed? How does someone or something transform through different layers being taken away or others being positioned on top? What new relations can be construction between coverage, paint and other complexities of the world?

Chris: I greatly enjoyed reading your comments which set my mind whirling! And I realised that my thinking is intimately connected to experience as is yours! When I looked at a wide selection of Lanyon paintings, the one chosen for the Atelier was not my ‘favourite’. Somehow the colours were ‘wrong’! I found some of the others allowed me to ‘feel’ the movement of the to-ing and fro-ing of the glider; to feel what I imagined as the ‘peace’ of being up in the sky, but lines covering blocks of colour, what appears to be areas where very thin layers have been added over other colours, or maybe colour has been ‘removed’ to give that effect. The idea of bringing ‘coverage’ and ‘flying’ together was new for me and very powerful. I have just returned from Europe and I ‘covered’ a lot of sky during the various flights. We had to fly from Dubai to Cyprus. The plane was making deliberate zigzag patterns to stay well away from firstly Yemen, then Syria – in no sense was this the shortest route. We covered a lot of ground. I started to think about the ‘coverage’ I create each day – in my home, at work, in my town, then the ‘coverage’ I create in/of ideas, feelings and relations. I was then reminded of the phrase often used in education in relation to the curriculum ‘we need to cover this/that topic’ so for me the initial question of ‘what is meant by coverage’ has moved far, far away from a lineal concept and now has brought the fonts of knowing spoken about by Reggio Emilia together – ideas around rationality, emotion, imagination and aesthetics and their interconnections and interrelationships that are unpredictable and that have the possibility to disrupt one another.

‘Glide Path’ was more of, as you say, a bumpy ride, unexpected turbulence. Not my ‘preferred’ experience! However, I found that feeling the pleasurable flights in the other paintings, helped me to return to this one and maybe to be willing to have a bumpy ride, a moment of ‘excitement??’, maybe what people call ‘being truly alive.’ I came to realise that I couldn’t look at this painting in isolation, but only in relation to his other pieces. Seeing ‘Glide Path’ in the context of the larger body of work tells a more complex story.

The concept of ‘coverage’ is intriguing. If I look just at this painting I notice one colour covering another, lines covering blocks of colour, what appears to be areas where very thin layers have been added over other colours, or maybe colour has been ‘removed’ to give that effect. The idea of bringing ‘coverage’ and ‘flying’ together was new for me and very powerful. I have just returned from Europe and I ‘covered’ a lot of sky during the various flights. We had to fly from Dubai to Cyprus. The plane was making deliberate zigzag patterns to stay well away from firstly Yemen, then Syria – in no sense was this the shortest route. We covered a lot of ground. I started to think about the ‘coverage’ I create each day – in my home, at work, in my town, then the ‘coverage’ I create in/of ideas, feelings and relations. I was then reminded of the phrase often used in education in relation to the curriculum ‘we need to cover this/that topic’ so for me the initial question of ‘what is meant by coverage’ has moved far, far away from a lineal concept and now has brought the fonts of knowing spoken about by Reggio Emilia together – ideas around rationality, emotion, imagination and aesthetics and their interconnections and interrelationships that are unpredictable and that have the possibility to disrupt one another.

Louisa: For me, Lanyon’s desire to take flight into the unknown as well as the act of distrupting thinking are such powerful human actions that take take real courage to enact. They require a will to let go and not to control; walking into the unknown, into the unfamiliar, the unidentifiable or perhaps swimming out into the ocean until your feet are just off the ground. That’s scary! But it is also where the exciting stuff happens…

continued in ‘The Challenge.’ 

The full version of this article has been published and distributed by Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange. To order a copy of the article, you can contact REAIE at: admin@reggioaustralia.org.au or at REAIE 442 Auburn Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia.

References 

Reggio Children. (2004). Children, Art, Artists. the expressive languages of children, the artistic language of Alberto Burri. Reggio Emilia: Reggio Children.

Reggio Children. (2015). Mosaic of Marks Words Material. Reggio Emilia: Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.

A visit to the Reggio Australia pedagogical documentation centre

This post features a summary and reflection on the theory, principles and practices of the Reggio Emilia process of pedagogical documentation. The possibilities and challenges of what this reflective methodology holds for children’s gallery education are also discussed in relation to my doctoral research. 

“There is a constant relational reciprocity between those who educate and those who are educated, between those who teach and those who learn. There is participation, passion, compassion and emotion. There is aesthetics. There is change.” Carlina Rinaldi

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon visiting the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange’s documentation centre at the University of Melbourne. I was interested in taking some time to think and reflect on how other early year’s educators are working with the process of pedagogical documentation within their own education settings. This is particularly pertinent to me after spending the past few months working with the early year’s team at the Whitworth Art Gallery where we constructed our own documentation processes in the Atelier programme.

Pedagogical documentation can be defined as (taken from the Reggio Australia website 2011):

“making the visible records (written notes, photos, videos, audio recordings, children’s work) that enable teachers, parents and children to discuss, interpret and reflect upon what is happening from their various points of view, and to make choices about the best way to proceed, believing that rather than being an unquestionable truth, there are many possibilities.”

Whilst this process is common practice in many progressive education nurseries and kindergartens, its use within museums and galleries is near non-existent.

Reggio Australia’s mission is founded upon the premise of advocating for ‘social justice and democracy in education, giving priority to active, constructive and creative learning by children’ as well as promoting ‘the critical role of research, observation, documentation, and interpretation of children’s processes of action and thought.’ These principles are consistent with the philosophies of the international Reggio Emilia educational approach that was developed in post-World War 2 Italy by philosopher and psychologist Loris Malaguzzi.

The Reggio Emilia approach is built around a framework of social constructivist learning theory. Originally proposed by Vygotsky (1930), social constructivism can be defined as the understanding that human’s intellectual, social and emotional growth is developed through social interactions with others of varying skills and expertise. It is through these interactions that new understandings and knowledge emerges from within the specific social, cultural and historic context that an activity is occurring. This sounds like quite a broad and generalised theory but the way that Reggio apply it within early childhood education settings is quite specific.

Pedagogical documentation plays an integral role in generating these new understandings. Through making children’s and practitioner’s learning visible and open to interpretation, old beliefs and practices may be contested and new understandings co-constructed among groups of people.

Image credit: http://www.smith.edu

Documentation generation is always motivated by a collective intention (usually a question) that is collaboratively decided among the team. Once documentation is collected, it is then collaboratively interpreted and reflected upon through a participatory process of dialogue, negotiation and exchange. From these reflections, new questions and intentions are set for the next learning environment. This iterative process works to build a rigorous and responsive curriculum that is in a continuous state of emergence. Documentation therefore becomes central in constructing a democratic and reflective pedagogy that values subjectivity, multiple interpretations of reality and questioning.

Here are my reflections from the documentation centre:

• Reggio is one of numerous child-centred approaches to education but possibly the most well-known. Whilst my work and research has many shared understandings around how human knowledge is developed, there are also many points of difference. These mainly arise from an art museum not being a school and therefore a different set of rules, divisions of labour and tools exist that mediate how teams of people interact and learn. These differences need to be acknowledged and then considered in relation to what new strategies and tools need to be developed to facilitate the learning of children, parents, artists, education curators and other practitioners in art museums.
• The pedagogista (this is a Reggio term for an educator who specialises in learning theory) I met with at REAIE made an interesting comment about the need for practitioners to deeply understand the theory and principles of the educational approach before embarking on collecting the documentation. Without this, the documentation becomes a series of pretty pictures without a pedagogical process around it. Understanding theory gives integrity, rigor and meaning to the practice.
• The need for adult practitioner’s to be open and reflective in their practice. These are actually personal traits and (I swear I am not a cynic) often rare to find in people. Anyone who has ever worked in an art museum for any length of time would probably have identified the sometimes large amount of egos and competing agendas circulating the building. Being self-reflective and adopting a growth mindset can be a very vulnerable place to operate from within this sort of environment.
• The need to not only describe learning process but also focus on the analysis of learning in the documentation.
• The need to holistically consider the cognitive, social, emotional and aesthetic learning processes of children. To isolate one, for example to only discuss learning in relation to cognition, is to paint an incomplete and bias perspective of human knowledge.
• The need to perceive learning as a dynamic, creative and transformative process that is continuously forming new relations between people, ideas, materials and non-human entities.

I left the documentation centre feeling inspired and optimistic. I love the value Reggio Emilia place on uncertainty, questioning and dialogic exchange but within a rigorous and methodical education process. As an art educator it is simultaneously exciting, thrilling and terrifying to see the world in an unformulated and forever changing way.

Despite what barriers some people are trying to put in place to create social divisions and fuel supremacist ways of thinking, the reality is that we live in a world that is forever changing, diversifying and becoming increasingly interconnected. And no-one knows what will happen in the future. The timeliness of the need to construct and apply pedagogies built upon democratic exchange, uncertainty and diversity are just as critical now as it was in post-World War II Italy. The contribution such an approach to learning makes is significant to both our education system and in the shaping of an empathetic and moral society.

References

Reggio Australia website (2011). Our Vision and Mission. Viewed January 18, 2017. Available at: https://www.reggioaustralia.org.au/our-vision-and-mission

Rinaldi, C (2004). In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, Researching and Learning. Oxon: Routledge

Vygotsky, L (1930). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 

Endings & continuity

Last week I had my final day of data generation in Manchester. Over the past couple of months I have been fortunate enough to have worked within a fantastic team comprised of an education curator, artists, teachers, children and parents. This time has been such an intense period of development, growth and expansion for my research and all of us on the team. I will spend the next couple of months writing up and theorising my findings before starting the second stage of fieldwork in 2017.

How many photos can a three year old take in 40 minutes? 287 apparently including this portrait of me that accurately captured my energetic state of mind

At times it can be strange working with children in education settings. You have this intense period, whether it be a school year, or a series of repeat visits to a museum, or even a single workshop, where a particular group of little humans become the centre of your creative and intellectual being. You see them change and develop in their thinking, communicating and curiosities about the world. Then all of a sudden it is the end of the academic year, or a project finishes or you change jobs and just like that these people who were once at the core of your world are no longer there. Yet the time spent together is always transformative, for better or worse. Somehow these endings always make the ephemeral temporality of life seem so much more acute.

In art museums these encounters are sometimes short-lived but nonetheless present meaningful snapshots into children’s lives. Many of these vignettes are heartwarming, full of tenderness and beautiful complexity. At other times these vignettes are unsettling and disturbing – the inequalities of society seem so much more enraging and unfair when it is a baby or toddler born into a situation they have no control over.

I often think about different children I have worked with over the years across various jobs and projects. I wonder where they may be in their lives now: if they have continued with their schooling, what their passions may be, if their parent’s divorce led them on a completely different trajectory or if their brief experience in a children’s art programme had any sort of enduring legacy throughout their life. I will probably never know the answers. That’s okay, there is something totally fine in that uncertainly. I guess it is this murky grey area of the unknown that so much incredible art, music, literature and thinking comes from.

On my final day working with the children this week one of my little mates brought in this artwork he had made for me. He handed it over with a ‘I will miss you’ and a cuddle. One of the artists saw the moment unfold and said, ‘don’t cry Lou, don’t cry!’ I thought, ‘it’s cool, I am a fully grown adult, I have got this’ while trying to hold back the tears and then bolting for the bathroom.

When you work in this field it is not about the status, or the money, or recognition, or ever expecting any sort of thanks or praise. It is about using everything you have got to try and make more meaningful lives for others. And sometimes these moments suddenly appear when it feels like your heart will burst with the fullness of the world in all its beauty, heartache, uncertainty and impermanence.

Learning with Serpentine – Interim Report

This is a repost from the Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacies (CRACL) blog. The original post was written by Pat Thomson, Professor of Education within the School of Education, University of Nottingham (UK). 

We have been conducting an evaluation of learning in the Serpentine’s World without Walls programme. We have just reported on our interim results from an examination of two projects. One was the first instalment of Changing Play, a project conducted in partnership with the Portman Children’s Centre.

Anton Franks did this first set of research. His investigation of the work that artist Albert Potrony did suggests the following benefits for children:

• awareness and understanding of a range of materials and objects, manipulative skills in handling large and small materials and objects, and ability to conceptualise them in form and use
• imaginative development in the interaction with materials, objects and other children, allowing experimentation in applying and combining of materials.
• linguistic development in the use of words, utterances and in the construction of narratives accompanying play and reflecting on it afterwards is essential in early conceptual development.
• the richness of children’s narratives incorporated their understanding of social relations and responses to immediate and mediated culture – many instances of children making references to familiar media characters (notably Power Rangers) and to their experience of social and cultural life (home life, rockets, putting people in prison)
• the ability to ‘read’ materials and objects – to name things in their playworld and to construct complex narratives ­­adapting them to their imaginative purposes – are powerful precursors of literacy development
• looking at the images the artist had taken of the children in play and then reflecting on them later, interpreting them and making narratives assisted the development of memory
• continuity and consistency in working regularly with a particular group of children – the original plan was to work both with the Nursery and with a drop-in parent and toddler group, ‘Stay and Play’, but after reflection and discussion with staff this was modified to concentrate on working with the Nursery children
• particularly apparent was children’s increasing sense of autonomy in the playworlds they created, affording them a clearer sense of their own developing character and personhood for themselves and in relation to others. Children were able to lead adults into and through their imaginative worlds, involving them in their play

There were also benefits for nursery staff and children. You can read our full interim evaluation report here as a downloadable pdf. worldwithoutwalls_interimresearchreport_final-copy

What it was like to leave my full-time job, sell my belongings & move to the other side of the world.

This month marks one year since I arrived in England. The title of this blog is misleading in that it is dramatising something that really was not such a big thing. Moving countries or cities is never easy but the process is broken down into such small steps that the change is not as overwhelming as it may seem to an outsider. The one thing I wish I had known before moving to England was how much I would love my work, studies and life here. Doing so has opened an expanding world of possibilities and connections, many of which I never knew existed.

The decision to do my PhD was bundled up in a handful of other life decisions, none of which were particularly easy to make. There were tears, long philosophical conversations with family and friends and many bottles of wine involved. To be honest, it was possibly the hardest set of decisions I have ever had to make. It was hard because I knew deep down how desperately I wanted it and how not doing it would require putting my soul into a box.

It all came from left of field. I had thought about doing a PhD but had never found the right opportunity. I could have easily continued doing children’s community art work in regional Australia. There were many aspects of my job that I truly loved and believed in. But there was also a continuous niggling feeling inside of me that knew there was a bigger place for learner-centred gallery practice and continuously felt frustrated at seeing the low status of children within many cultural institutions. After the initial proposal was made to me, it took about eight months of deliberating until I made the decision within myself that I would do it. I then set about refining my research topic and making plans. I knew that I wanted to explore child-centred education in practice and not just as an intellectual concept. I always enjoyed art history and theory-based university subjects but none of them made my tummy flip in the way that making art and making creative spaces did. So it was decided: child-centred education, in art galleries and in practice.

Then there were the finances. Not being a UK/EU citizen made me ineligible for any AHRC funding and the Australian government does not give out student loans to people studying abroad. The only financial option for me was to be awarded scholarships and grants. Miraculously I was awarded four all around the same time that covered my tuition fees and first two years of living expenses. Without these, my PhD simply would not have been possible. Just before I left Australia I sold the majority of my belongings. I gave my precious books and artworks to family and friends who have promised to give them back ‘when I grow up and have a home.’ I never cared too much about material things and it does not bother me that I no longer own any furniture, car or major assets. When people ask me where home is I don’t know what to reply. I have moved so many times and am continuously travelling. The idea of ‘home’ is never stable.

Starting out I set myself two goals: to submit within three years and to not develop a mental illness. So far so good. I had heard the horror stories of PhD supervisor and fieldwork gone horribly wrong. I guess the PhD candidate-supervisor relationship is so individual it is difficult to transfer one person’s experience onto another’s. I feel guilty writing this knowing I have friends going through supervisor hell but mine are fantastic. I am glad I moved here for them.

Of course there have been times when things have not been so rosy. I have had many days when I felt incredibly frustrated at the British stiff upper lip. Of course not everyone is like this, I have many lovely British friends who are open and warm. At the same time the ultra-reserved behaviour made me feel like I was going crazy and was being stifled. To me, such an important part of being human is learning to express ideas in a way that is respectful and in negotiation with others, no matter how different they are from ones own. The past year has made me realise how much I value the genuine expression of emotion and ideas in others without hidden agendas and behavioural nuances.

The difficult thing about living abroad is that your heart continuously feels like it is being pulled in opposite directions by completely different things. Of course I miss my family back home. My two brothers and I live across three different continents. That sucks because I love them so much and no-one makes me laugh like them. But being in England is so professionally fulfilling. I absolutely made the right decision to come here even considering all of the trials, tribulations and sacrifices it involved.

This summer I spent two months in the Netherlands and the South of France. During this time I cringed every time I thought of returning to England, despite the love for my research. Yet something must have shifted in me during this time as when I stepped off the plane back in London the cold weather and cold interactions did not feel like such a struggle anymore. I am now in the midst of my fieldwork, which is all going extremely well. I am living in a new city and working with a fantastic team. Ideas are coming alive and growing in unexpected and interesting ways. I am excited for what is to come!

PhD data collection… day one

Tomorrow is a big day. I have my cameras charged. My consent forms printed. My clipboards are sitting in my backpack. A giant paper roll to display pedagogical documentation is rolled up next to the front door. This comes on top of months of reading, thinking and discussing the literatures, conceptual foundations, data collection methods and methodology of my PhD research. To say that tomorrow is my very first day of data collection is a partial truth. I have been doing pieces of data collection over the past year, mostly in the form of visiting and observing different ‘creative laboratories’ within cultural institutions. Tomorrow will be the first day that I start to apply and test my critical ‘pedagogical documentation’ methodology. I will also begin to explore the theory, challenges and possibilities of the application of child-centred practice in art galleries.

Tech check!! A big shoutout to Poundland for selling useful stationary at bargain prices.

My first thought is that I am so excited to be around the children again. Since I finished up my work in Australia last July, I have not been around children on a day-to-day basis. With the exception of a couple of side projects my time has been predominantly filled watching hours of Beyonce and Carl Sagan video clips researching, reading and writing my literature review and methodology sections. During this time it felt as though something fundamental was missing from my life as I was away from the kids. I knew this would happen and was one of the reasons I was initially quite hesitant to do my PhD. Children challenge me artistically, intellectually and in a fundamentally different way to adults. I have heard many colleagues and friends working in art education say the same thing. I don’t mean this so much in a ‘Lou, why do humans have two eyes and not ten?’ way but more so in relation to the questions surrounding adult practitioner’s potential to design a social and physical space in which children can explore and express their feelings, beliefs and curiosities alongside others. I do find it a bit unnerving that in some museums, staff working directly with children are often at the bottom of the institutional hierarchy. As well as staff sometimes being employed who have very little or no experience working with large groups of young children. As well as the unfortunate and incorrect notion some people have that working with children is so easy anyone can do it so why waste money on employing qualified and experienced staff when a volunteer can do it? Having skilled practitioners who know when to ask a question, or introduce a new material, or to stand back and let the child play independently is crucial in constructing a child-centred creative environment. However, getting back to my point, I am most looking forward to the chaos, complexity and fun of being back around children for the next few months.

My imminent data collection is based around the potentialities and challenges of using pedagogical documentation [1] as a rigorous and critically reflective methodology within children’s gallery education. This can be defined generally as when children’s self-led learning strategies and play practices are collected using visual research methods and critically discussed by groups of educators – or in the instance of this research, artists and curators. This process also allows art and education practitioners to reflect upon children’s experiences in addition to their own thinking and actions. I do often think about why cultural institutions have not already developed pedagogical documentation spaces. This would provide a means of exploring and reflecting upon how people learn individually and in groups within their institutions. Actually, I mainly just question myself over this and whether or not such a methodological process can be applied to an informal site of learning and within the hierarchical structure of a museum. In my bias opinion, such a critically reflective and rigorous methodology is frequently absent from gallery education and socially engaged art. I am not aware of a museum, gallery or artist who has used pedagogical documentation consistently throughout their practice. If you do know of one, please email me.

A second major focus for the data collection is researching how teams of people – individuals who come together within a cultural institution – construct, present and plan future actions based upon the reflection of children’s experiences. This means that the research is not just focused on how an individual artist can reference pedagogy but how cultural knowledge can be constructed through a dialogic and collaborative process between artists, curators, children and their families. I am extremely interested to see what findings result from the application of such an approach.

Another key consideration entering the data collection is that I am not solely the practitioner. Whilst my role may be somewhat fluid, my central responsibility is that of a researcher. This is new too. The emphasis within academia on the use of language as the dominant means of communication makes me uncomfortable. My human composition somehow results in feeling most comfortable expressing complex emotion and thought through making things, whether that be art or developing creative space for others. From now on text will be the main output, eeeep. I had better stop telling myself I am not good at writing and get on with it.

I know that the next few months will present many unpredictable things. When this inevitably occurs, I will strive to keep my heart and mind open and embrace what new trajectories could emerge from them. To quote OutKast, ‘you can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather.’ 

I thought of that quote in ALDI this morning. Definitely using it in my thesis.

References

1. Reggio Children & Harvard Project Zero 2001. ‘Making learning visible: Children as individual and groups learners,’ Reggio Children.