Publications

Evoking Desire…and Irreverence: A Collection of Women Writing Women

Women Writing Women Collective — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:58:43 PDT

We draw from the diverse life experiences of women who have supported their academic and life journeys through membership in the Women Writing Women (WWW) collective. We come from diverse backgrounds in curriculum, new media studies, drama, english, art, science, creative writing, elementary, secondary, higher and adult education, and bring these multiple perspectives to our monthly dialogues. We explore how writing can evoke desire, longing, fear, reverence, irreverence, joy and awe rather than merely represent. The community offers an emergent space for these deeply personal, yet public explorations into meaning‐making. We share personal stories, perform writing, dialogue on the evolution of this collective, and co‐create with the audience gathered.

Throughout the four years of conforming, unforming, reforming and transforming within this collective, we have come to understand that the simple and seemingly isolated act of personal and academic writing is a complex social reality. We articulate singularities in our writings and discussions as we simultaneously discover overlapping links within personal and collective metaphors. The paper opens a much‐needed dialogue on the complexity of transformational learning communities, particularly within academia. We hope to evoke dialogue and inspire among our readership to also create writing collectives as a form of ‘joyful revolt’ against isolating hegemonics, opening up a new space to explore collectivity and emergent possibility.

A/r/tographic Collaboration as Radical Relatedness

Barbara Bickel et al. — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:58:41 PDT

In this paper the authors examine a/r/tographical collaboration in a communityengaged research study investigating immigrant understandings of home and place. The study, The City of Richgate, involves a complex collaboration between community members, community organizations, educational institutions, and a research team comprising artist-educators. The study crosses border zones of cultural, ethnic, geographic, institutional, public, private, and disciplinary boundaries, reflecting the ever-changing character of postmodern reality. In this paper the authors reflect critically and theoretically on the lived experience of radical relatedness found within the complex collaboration, particularly within the a/r/tographic research team. This offers a qualitative methodology of radical collaboration applicable to many fields of inquiry in the academy, art world, and community.

The Rhizomatic Relations of A/r/tography

Rita L. Irwin et al. — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:43:19 PDT

A/A/r/tography is a form of practice-based research steeped in the arts and education. Alongside other arts-based, arts-informed and aesthetically defined methodologies, a/r/tography is one of many emerging forms of inquiry that refer to the arts as a way of re-searching the world to enhance understanding. Yet, it goes even further by recognizing the educative potential of teaching and learning as acts of inquiry. Together, the arts and education complement, resist, and echo one another through rhizomatic relations of living inquiry. In this article, we demonstrate rhizomatic relations in an ongoing project entitled “The City of Richgate” where meanings are constructed within ongoing a/r/tographic inquiries described as collective artistic and educational praxis. Rhizomatic relations do not seek conclusions and therefore, neither will this account. Instead, we explore a/r/tographical situations as methodological spaces for furthering living inquiry. In doing so, we invite the art education community to consider rhizomatic relations performed through a/r/tography as a politically informed methodology of situations.

Re/Turning to Her: An A/r/tographic Ritual Inquiry

Barbara Bickel et al. — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:51:56 PDT

This article reaches into the depths of a collaborative a/r/tographic ritual inquiry between two women artist-educators-priestesses. Within this we reflect on the intersections of research, art, spirituality, and education as thresholds of collaborative learning. Throughout the ritual-infused research process, we generated source material and imagery from trance, Authentic Movement, the labyrinth, reflective writing and co-interviews. Each of these process practices took us outside of ourselves, and attuned us to Spirit, offering a larger perspective on the inquiry while simultaneously bringing us closer to actualizing the performance ritual. In co-creating what became a performative ritual narrative of the loss and restoration of the Divine feminine in Western culture, we reclaimed a lost part of our Spiritual lineage as women through the performance ritual Re/Turning to Her, a teaching parable performed for the larger community.

Crossing the Waterline: A Ritual Inquiry

Barbara Bickel — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:51:55 PDT

In this essay, I inquire phenomenologically into a gesture that I performed and documented through photography. This gesture is significant because it has led me to consider the resistant edge of myself as an artist, researcher, and educator. It is from this resistant edge that I find myself crossing a metaphorical waterline. Waterlines mark the liminal threshold between water and air, i.e., the point of conscious awareness—of breath—below which lay the unknown. This metaphor has helped me become aware of myself as artist, writer, learner, and teacher. In this art essay of my living inquiry into a performed gesture within an art installation, I discovered the waterline of a self-censored voice.

Awakening the Divine Feminine: A Stepmother-daughter Collaborative Journey through Art Making & Ritual

Barbara Bickel et al. — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:51:54 PDT