'Lost Luggage'
Presenters: Osbert Parker, (School of Art & Design - Animation), Gavin Fernandes: (School of Art & Design - Fashion Communication & Styling), Peter Thomas: Library & Student Services
‘Lost Luggage’ was a student engagement project that opened up learning dialogues between groups from different disciplinary backgrounds at various stages of their learning. It was a cross-programme workshop, involving several schools, that allowed for diverse and divergent outcomes through collective creative enquiry and convivial learning.
Please provide details of the focus you will be presenting in your session/poster. The presentation will focus on key aspects of how the workshop was conceived, prepared and run as an innovative large scale open forum for active play, speculation and co-creation. We had a diverse group of students, from 10 different programmes in Art & Design and Media & Performing Arts. The presentation will highlight how these students were grouped into multidisciplinary teams and guided to collaborate with one another for the first time to create work (designed outcomes) in response to authentic lost luggage and personal effects, and the hidden narratives suggested by them.
Outline: This was an ambitious collaborative project that, though a convivial workshop process, successfully facilitated intelligent play and deep learning. The presentation will reflect on how this was achieved.
Feedback data that was gathered after the workshop from the student-participants suggests that most of the students found the workshop to be a very stimulating environment that genuinely inspired co-creation through sharing interdisciplinary skills and knowledge. The presentation will consider this data and highlight features of the workshop that seem to have had the most significant impact.
Among these features is the way that the workshop established an innovative platform for teaching and social learning beyond the curriculum. This encouraged the students to evolve collaborative communities for mutual learning gain, and proved to be an effective means for them to develop confidence and find their voice.
The presentation will consider the ways that being brave and prepared to take risks were at the heart of the collaborative and convivial nature of the learning they experienced. Risk-taking was an intrinsic part of the work they did with new materials and techniques, in spaces outside their normal disciplinary areas, and with students from different and unfamiliar departments.
There was a clear need to strike a careful balance between student self-direction and structural parameters for the workshop. We will use visual and video evidence to illustrate how the workshop facilitators were key in helping to guide and encourage students to dig deep and produce work outside their comfort zones.
The presentation will further show how the workshop made creative use of one of the University’s communal spaces (the Grove Atrium) as a resource for active learning and engagement. The space encouraged an open pedagogy in a public arena, and was central to the convivial learning experience that workshop made possible. It had a meaningful and memorable impact on students’ education beyond curriculum.
The level of collaboration, goodwill and co-creation with students involved in bringing this innovative project to life, was described as "exemplary" by the head of the Visual Arts department. It inspired workshop participants, non-participating students, as well as academic and technical staff, while igniting curiosity throughout the school from the Vice-Chancellor to visitors in the Grove during two unforgettable weeks of workshop and exhibition activities.
Session learning outcomes:
To understand the impact of large scale collaborative projects and convivial learning has on students individual learning development when departments genuinely engaged with diverse and exciting inter-disciplinary potential behind 'teaching experiments'.
Open a dialogue to influence programme, department and curriculum change, by illustrating student's positive perspectives on the significance of teamwork, play, taking risks and being fearless, particularly when working in creative groups of different disciplines.
The presentation will set an example and precedent for large scale cross-programme collaborative projects that combines trust, social play and open curiosity with student centered learning goals that transcend disciplines.
References:
Armstrong, P. (2004) Regenerating conviviality in adult learning: towards a research agenda. Proceedings of the SCUTREA 34th Annual Conference, University of Sheffield, 6th-8th July. Available at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003580.htm [accessed 14/4/16]
Bateson, P. & P. Martin (2013) Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Billing, J., M. Lind and L. Nilsson (Eds.) (2007) Taking The Matter Into Common Hands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices. London: Black Dog Publishing.
Lindauer, M. S. (1998) Interdisciplinarity, the Psychology of Art, and Creativity: An Introduction. Creativity Research Journal. 11, 1. pp. 1-10.
Mason, R. (2008) Problems of Interdisciplinarity: Evidence‐Based and/or Artist‐Led Research? International Journal of Art & Design Education. 27, 3. pp. 279-292.
Keywords: art & design; large-scale cross-programme collaboration; interdisciplinarity; convivial learning; self-organisation.
