Embodied Knowledge in Artistic Practice

embodiedknowledgeI am particularly curious about the kind of knowledge production generated through artistic practice and how that enhances learning in inter/multi/transdisciplinary contexts.

I am not yet sure how to articulate it, except that I think it is somehow akin to the embodied knowledge generated through practices like sports but where the cognitive pathways developed are emotive/communicative/interpretive AND temporal-spatial rather than neuro-muscular+temporal-spatial. The more I’ve looked for answers about this question, the more I’ve realized how ill-defined it is in a lot of the existing research. Still, I am on a quest.

Hierarchy of domains

Thinking about cultural appropriation from one discipline to another and how analogous this is to other forms of cultural appropriation.

From the position of power (in terms of social/institutional/fiscal capital), the appropriator is able to use and lay claim to convenient “parts” of disciplines lower on the totem pole, while declining to invest in a full understanding of the appropriated discipline, and yet still control the narrative in a way that is NOT possible in the reverse direction.

Responsive Assessments

Thinking about the challenges of assessing subjective art education outcomes, or STEAM outcomes. Judgment of the quality of such outcomes is subjective precisely because their interpretation is situated and intersectional. I wonder if there is a way to create a responsive model for assessments, like responsive layout, that detects a variety of contextual factors and adapts to a better-fitting model for each individual or scenario.

Travel kit

I have had a lot of requests for the details of my mini travel art kit recently, so I decided to jot down the recipe that works for me to make it easier to share:

A zippered mesh bag

This holds the art kit all together! This tough mesh is essential to me because any residual moisture in the paint pan or brush will dry out after use without having to unpack the kit. But I also find it extremely useful to be able to see everything in the pouch so I don’t have to search around in the depths and corners of a bag. I especially like the ones with an extra side pocket to separate smaller items, but even a single pocket pouch works well. An artist friend in the Phillipines brought these back for me, but I found a similar bag in the stationary section at Muji, and I am sure they are available elsewhere.

A watercolor set

I am a big fan of Sennelier watercolors for their pigment and creamyness, and my go-to set for the last few years has been this 12 half-pan metal travel kit. It unfolds, providing two mixing trays on the side, with a row of paint pans in the middle.

Discussing Metacognition

Quick thought that came out of coaching conversation yesterday: I think it is always useful to surface and discuss the metacognitive aspects of a learning experience (ie mindset, transfer of practices and concepts to other domains, etc) with learners. If they are thinking about and discussing these aspects of the learning experience while they are in the midst of it, then they are potentially gathering information about how they learn throughout whatever project they are working on. If this kind of metacognitive reflection is both fostered and practiced regularly, it becomes integrated… adding a powerful tool to help learners understand and improve their own learning process.

A Shift of Mind

There is something in all of us that loves to put together a puzzle, that loves to see the image of the whole emerge. It is interesting that the words “whole” and “health” come from the same root (the Old English hal, as in “hale and hearty”). So it should come as no surprise that the unhealthiness of our world today is in direct proportion to our inability to see it as a whole. What we see depends on what we are prepared to see. Western languages, with their subject-verb-object structure, are biased toward a linear view.

– Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of Systems Thinking