Author : Miriam Dolnick
Release : 2015
Genre : Art
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Potential Spaces by : Miriam Dolnick

Download or read book Potential Spaces written by Miriam Dolnick. This book was released on 2015. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My research explores the learning and artistic potential that takes shape through the manipulation of physical space in art making. In thinking about this topic within the context of a school, I have explored the relationship between physical space and the individual artistic process, site specific art making using school space as material, and personal narratives of space as a basis for art making within a school. In reflecting on my own art education and my work as a teaching artist, it is the space of the experience, the classroom, or the way in which the space of the classroom has been manipulated that most powerfully shapes the learning and making experience. My research questions include: What occurs when students are asked to creatively manipulate school space and think about how spaces take on meaning? How might attending to school space differently affect students' experience of the space? How might a group inquiry into the regulated space of a high school shape my process of learning to teach? My research took place during a seven-week period of student teaching at an art magnet program in a diverse public high school on Chicago's north side during the spring of 2015. During this time we completed three projects ranging in media from text, installation, and collage, which looked towards school space as a point of inquiry. My data included: student artwork, writing, classroom discussions, and critiques. I found that despite working from the highly regulated structure of school space, students were eager to share alternative narratives that portrayed their own layered experiences and histories of the space. Additionally, I found that students could easily imagine interruptions, both conceptual and visual, that focused on the alternative potential of the space of the school. In encouraging students to attend to the highly regulated and inflexible space of their school differently, I found that school space could be re-imagined into a force that not only contains but also feeds students' unique creative practices. This project has encouraged me to continue to seek the flexibility in regulated structures and creating spaces of learning and making that are malleable and useful as potential material within students' individual practices. It has also pushed me to reflect on how complicated spatial investigations within a school can be and how potential obstacles can be recognized and incorporated as resources for the thinking and meaning surrounding art making in school spaces.