Relational Drawing: Provisional Pedagogy as Interdisciplinary Action

By:

Relational registers of contemporary drawing insist on the propadeutic moment before completion for the sake of process and a holding pattern enabling learning as moment-to-moment emergence of subjectivity through immersion in materiality, spatiality and temporality. Five studio projects presented in the contemporary public arena are analysed as case studies wherein the double loop of action research (doing-reflecting-doing) demonstrates iterative inquiry and integration between practice and theory. The five projects utilise architectural devices around which their holding patterns are extended and prolonged: window, panorama, interior, wall, and proscenium.

The theoretical framework for the analysis of the selected case studies is constructed through and across five key ideas embedded in current discourse regarding visual arts education: 1) Henri Lefebvre’s notion of space-time as relational, involving the body, architecture and their socio-political milieu; 2) Martin Heidegger’s understanding of provisionality as crucial to learning through anticipation and the experience of possibilities; 3) Michel Serres’ insistence on learning as dynamic crossbreeding between disciplines; 4) Paolo Freire’s contribution to our understanding of participatory action research and its pedagogical benefits; and 5) John Berger’s experience of drawing as a process of correction through which we never cease to learn.

This workshop includes participant analysis of the case studies presented in relation to the key ideas listed above.

Stream: Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts

Paper: , Relational Drawing as Pedagogical Action

Leoni Schmidt is currently the Academic Leader: Research & Postgraduate Studies in the School of Art at Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand. She is particularly interested in the pedagogical possibilities of the visual arts, specifically in how contemporary drawing and its theoretical and historical underpinnings can facilitate education in a studio and study integration. Leoni has been responsible for the establishment of the Master of Fine Arts Programme at her current institution, a programme which has earned praise from candidates, supervisors, and international monitors and external examiners for its academic rigour and integration of studio practice and theory. She holds a doctorate from the University of Johannesburg (RAU), an MA (Fine Arts) from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and a BA (Fine Arts) from the University of South Africa. Her research focuses on contemporary drawing and its relationships with education in the visual arts, design and architecture; its intersections with other visual arts disciplines; and its functions in particular socio-political contexts.
Professor Schmidt is currently the Conference Convenor for the Aotearoa/New Zealand Association of Arts Educators Conference 2009.