Published Articles by Miranda Matthews
Rachel Payne (ed.) Artist Teachers: UK Perspectives on Pedagogies, Practices and Partnerships. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2024
Conditions for art and design practice in schools in the UK are currently notoriously difficult. ... more Conditions for art and design practice in schools in the UK are currently notoriously difficult. There is an ongoing scarcity of subject-specific Continued Professional Development (CPD) for teachers (Thomas 2022). Before the austerity era that started in 2010, teachers were often encouraged to go to external moderation sessions, to take a short course in a new skill, or to do a Masters qualification with support from their school (Matthews 2018). In addition, in the 2020s, everyone has had to make adjustments during and since the pandemic. The more long-term effects of the pandemic, such as learning gaps and economic adversity, are still affecting education in the UK and internationally (Moss 2022). Additional challenges have arisen for being an artist teacher, or a student of art and design, in relation to the rapid increase in costs of living, and eco-anxieties in the ‘Earth crisis’ of climate change (McKenzie 2020).
Art and design education is in need of adaptive, sustainable strategies. In the context of rapid policy change, artist teachers also need arguments that can act as levers in discussions where the arts are brought to the table for justification. I will argue here that the collaborative networking of artist teachers offers strategies for tackling the immanent contexts for practice.
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Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 2021
Online learning can be an alienating experience; students can feel their emotions are disregarded... more Online learning can be an alienating experience; students can feel their emotions are disregarded, marginalized or even viewed as hindrances as they try to motivate themselves to learn, staring at the dancing pixels of their illuminated screens. They feel at a remove from other students, trapped in other rooms, far away from them.
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International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2021
Insistence on verbal literacy as a key skill occurs throughout education. There needs to be a gre... more Insistence on verbal literacy as a key skill occurs throughout education. There needs to be a greater awareness of literacy as a sensory capacity: creative voices are seen, heard and performed. I argue that all the senses form embodied understanding, and obstructing this flow can impede learning. This article questions how we can use embodied, sensory and performative methods to enable student ownership of theoretical and cultural texts. It contributes a theorised approach and transferrable methods for students to build confidence in their learning capacity. I discuss how interpretations of texts can be seen as discourses that are expressed through visualisation, embodiment and affect to empower learning. Practice research with vocational art and design students is explored, to address their expressions of empowerment, in connection with their interpretations of Foucault and Freire. Students' individuated sensory methods of representing empowerment also offer more inclusive possibilities for decolonised cultural ownership through arts practice.
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International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2021
Responding to conditions of lockdown and social distancing since March 2020, the Centre for Arts ... more Responding to conditions of lockdown and social distancing since March 2020, the Centre for Arts and Learning (CAL) at Goldsmiths is researching how arts practice and creative processes can sustain an affective presence in digital learning environments. In this article I discuss our research into how artist educators and students have adapted to the necessity for online learning, including the difficulties of doing so. I refer to a posthumanist, Deleuzian theoretical map that connects with the different collaborative, practice research assemblages we are working with this year. In discussion is a project for engaging with artists and creatives and their learning developments since March 2020 called Finding Comfort within Discomfort. Participants speak for themselves from Instagram and Linktee. The CAL online recorded events with myself and Francis Gilbert; Heather Barnett and Sarah Christie; Jane Prophet; Kimberley Foster, Karl Foster and Victoria Mitchell are referred to as ‘cultural texts’ in hybrid digital/material/embodied arts practice. This research observes ways of expressing emotive release, expanding embodiment from the small screen, and making connections with others that can be adaptive to their different cultural, localised situations. The research seeks to further transferable, affective creative processes.
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Pedagogy Culture and Society, 2021
The will to have freedom and a will to experience equality in learning form a vital relation to o... more The will to have freedom and a will to experience equality in learning form a vital relation to our capacity to make choices in life. This article offers a comparison between Sartre and Rancière that is new to the field of research in education, and contributes an argument for relational philosophy of freedom and equality. Existentialist insights into how we experience the world through affect and embodied intelligence are raised in this exploration of the contemporary significance of ‘freedom’ in education. Questions of capacity for free choice are addressed, in discussion of historically different opportunities across identifications of gender, class and ethnicity - within and outside formal education. In this comparative approach, constructive parallels are identified between Sartre’s philosophy of freedom and Rancière’s method of equality, that form a new relation to the arts and learning. I argue that there are positive connections that can affirm flexible, responsive, and representative free thinking in creative practice.
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International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2020
Expanding from standardised ways of thinking and making work, artists and educators enter spaces ... more Expanding from standardised ways of thinking and making work, artists and educators enter spaces between modes of practice that can be termed 'discomfort zones'. These liminal spaces offer opportunities for new events of learning, for captivating interest in the arts, and for problem-posing around social issues-for example of inclusivity and representation. Each artist, researcher, and practitioner in this Discomfort Zones special edition of iJade has connected with the theme in relation to their practice research. The uniting concept recognises the importance of boundary-work that encourages the expansion of learning capacity, of connection and difference. In 2020 we saw global changes in how educators and students communicate with each other. The arts offer affective spaces in which we can say what we feel in whichever sensory expression is most appropriate. However, the multisensory forms of arts practice, and their physical relations to audience interaction became projected future experience. The spatial, embodied presence of arts practice was forced to exist in virtual and imagined spaces. Art and design education has, therefore, faced unprecedented challenges in developing, exhibiting and assessing practice. We were physically and emotionally moved out of our comfort zones in the change to online connectivity for art education and exhibition audiences.
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The International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2020
Editorial, including invited contributors, Miranda Matthews, published 28 December 2020
Authors ... more Editorial, including invited contributors, Miranda Matthews, published 28 December 2020
Authors responded to the Centre for Arts and Learning's theme for 2019-20 in special edition of the International Journal of Art and Design Education.
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BERA Blog, 2020
(2020) Finding a new path: Building affective online learning spaces for creative writing and art... more (2020) Finding a new path: Building affective online learning spaces for creative writing and arts practice. British Education Research Association. 25 August 2020. https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/finding-anew path building -affective-online-learning-spaces-for-creative-writing-and-arts-practice While we have seen a justified focus upon schools during the C19 crisis, relatively little attention has been paid to how teacher-educators are adjusting their practice. In the UK in mid-March 2020 all of us working in education had to radically change within the space of a few days. In our case, school visits were replaced by online tutorials with the beginning teachers we train. 'Real-time' lectures were pre-recorded, and seminars conducted via video link technologies such as Microsoft Teams and the Big Blue Button. Staff meetings also became 'virtual'. In the midst of this massive upheaval, we met in mid-May to discuss how to respond creatively to the crisis. Feeling constrained by such much phrenetic, regulated activity, we decided to do some 'free writing' which allows you 'to write anything' (Bolton 2010: 23). Our rationale was that such writing provides a space for feeling to exist. We reflected that while educating our trainees online had been creative-we were constantly innovating-there was little chance to express our emotions. Working online can demand a perfectionist sensibility. Virtual learning spaces are tightly curated by the software's neat design: every keyboard tap, every interaction is logged somewhere. Both of us wanted to escape these 'sanitised' constraints and purposefully create an overspill, to be experimental. Experiences of risk and imperfection are essential for creativity (Biesta, 2013); in addition, we wanted to see if free writing might provide us with further insight into how to deal with the new paradigms of online learning, social distancing and the global pandemic. The free writing encouraged us to consider whether nurturing a similar 'lack of perfection' using this and other techniques, such as spontaneous drawing, might help our students. We came to perceive that immediacy and rawness is an essential part of creative development, and would like to think about how more polished online interfaces for learning could accommodate the emotive in teaching practice. Bound by the structure of online spaces, following tight rubrics of assessment and control of interaction, do teacher educators and students need to have a chance to find a new path? (Craft 2011) Our thinking about this connects with a posthumanist research methodology (Fox & Alldred 2015). Posthumanists look beyond human interactions to explore how nonhuman and more-than-human forces affect us. One posthumanist approach is to
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International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2019
Addressing changes in conditions for practitioners that can be related to education policy in Eng... more Addressing changes in conditions for practitioners that can be related to education policy in England and Wales since 2010, this article presents issues faced by teachers of art and design and their responses in practice. The current insistence on transparency in education emerges through policy that audits performativity, in a limiting skills bank. Practitioners in Art and Design are particularly affected by what I term 'the transparency-exclusion paradox', as they battle to maintain the subject area and are 'othered' by the English Baccalaureate and Progress 8. I will discuss an emergent 'ethos of ambiguity' among artist-teachers and contemporary artists, with a theoretical basis informed by Beauvoir and Foucault. Empirical data from research participants will be evidenced, to explore strategies of response in inclusive social practice. This article adds to literature that considers the effects of policy in implementation and it contributes to research on creative expressions of ambiguity in the arts.
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International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2018
38.1 Agency and Social Construction: Practice of the Self in Art and Design
Miranda Matthews Abst... more 38.1 Agency and Social Construction: Practice of the Self in Art and Design
Miranda Matthews Abstract
Learning in the arts has the potential to be a co-constructive means of inquiry for students, which enables experience of the self in relation to practice. This research explores a practice-based investigation of agency as self-definition, amid normative social constructions of the subject. The focus for data analysis is a project taught to BTEC Level 2 Art and Design students in a deprived area of North London (2010–12). A dialogue is presented between the implications for Sartre’s theory of free-will and a Foucauldian critique of social construction. Applications for this comparative theory are discussed here as a form of resistance to the compression of learning identities in art and design, and across the curriculum. This is an approach which encourages emancipated self-representation, acknowledging cultural diversity, for a discursive environment viable at all levels of study. In exploring the data, a positioning of free-will with social responsibility is identified as an inclusive forum for creative understanding, and the tolerance of difference.
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Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2018
Dynamics of policy making for education are invested with intersubjective tensions, as different ... more Dynamics of policy making for education are invested with intersubjective tensions, as different stakeholders seek to meet their changing needs in the shifting ground of neoliberalism. Recent literature emphasising the need for boundary-work seeks to bridge the tensions in order to broker resolutions. I argue that perspectives on boundary-work connecting with the Foucauldian sense of power as relations could benefit from further analysis of the forms of intersubjective conflict involved. Accordingly Sartre's concept of conflicted Otherness is in focus. Through empirical investigation, the stances taken by advisory policy makers and school senior management attempting to navigate directives for art education are theorised. This original approach to such relational boundaries locates key issues in the field of policy studies. It raises questions about the difficulties of aiming for effective collaboration in a climate of protectionist reactions to globalisation, incentivised competition, and the divisive minimisation of creativity in the curriculum.
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Pedagogy Culture and Society, 2018
Austerity politics in Britain are edging towards compressed learning and teaching identities, dri... more Austerity politics in Britain are edging towards compressed learning and teaching identities, driven by competition for resources and normative standards. Policy changes since 2010 have impacted particularly on the arts, and have had an adverse effect on cultural diversity across society. This situation has international resonance for those encountering protectionist reactions to globalisation. Practitioners in creative fields face dilemmas of agency, as they seek to maintain the presence of their roles, and ability to make choices. This paper focuses on how practitioners in post-compulsory art and design and gallery education challenge hegemonic constructions of the self through practice. It reflects on Herne’s (2006) study of relational differences between teachers and gallery educators, raising points for connective interventions as boundary work. A comparative lens draws upon theories of agency to support critically engaged practice. Empirical data is investigated through Sartre’s concept of free will, and Foucauldian negotiations of autonomy.
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Centre for Arts & Learning Events & Projects 20-21 by Miranda Matthews
Participant Information Sheet for Online Respondents – Educational Studies staff, Educational s... more Participant Information Sheet for Online Respondents – Educational Studies staff, Educational studies postgraduate students and online respondents through the Centre for Arts and Learning public engagement
Finding Comfort within Discomfort:
Dr. Miranda Matthews, Educational Studies, m.matthews@gold.ac.uk:
Dear [Participant]
You are being invited to take part in a research project. Before you decide whether or not to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully.
With the unprecedented circumstances of Covid-19, academics, students and people in all walks of life have had to adjust to being within what might previously have seemed to be the ‘comfort zone’ of their own home, but through limitations on travel and social gathering has changed its significance for many. This research project proposes to explore how domestic and local space is explored in new or extended forms of creative self-expression that support wellbeing.
The arts are facing a time of great adjustment, in which the online interfaces for public engagement and learning opportunities could be more responsive to the experiences of change in localities and in everyday lives. This project intends to find out new ways in which creative learning communities can be built, and to make a new interactive interface between the research centre, staff, students and public audiences for the arts and learning.
Participants are asked to submit a film of 30-60 seconds, or an image and 150 words that gives an outward facing view of how they have creatively explored the discomfort zones of lockdown and social distancing. These submissions will become research data that can be thematically analysed, presented on online CAL forums and in research publications that explore creative responses to lockdown and social distancing in relation to Covid-19. Participation in the research is open to Masters, PhD and PGCE students and staff in Educational Studies, and to adult members of the public who engage with the Centre for Arts and Learning in its online forums. We would like to encourage a diversity of response including representation from BAME communities. The project will continue for the duration of social distancing regulations, or until July 2021, whichever is the longer time phase. Participants may also be asked to discuss their creative forms of self-expression and new learning ventures since March 2020 in interviews.
You have been invited to participate because we would like to hear about the ways you have adjusted your practice and lifestyles, or added new outlets that are comforting and supportive of wellbeing. The creative adjustments that you are making to the ways in which you work, learn and express yourselves through creative practice will help inform research into how the arts and learning are evolving as an adjustment to Covid-19 and experiences of social distancing from March 2020. We hope that participants will benefit from the project in being able to celebrate their resourceful independent or collaborative creative self-expression, and to see this response to Covid-19 social distancing as a contribution to the learning experiences of others.
It is entirely up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you decide to do so, you will be given this information sheet to keep and will be asked to give your informed consent on the accompanying consent form. You can withdraw from the project at any time without giving a reason. Neither refusal to participate nor withdrawal will have any impact on marks or future studies in the case of students, or on current or future employment conditions for staff.
If you take part you will be asked to create a short film of up to a minute and send this to us as an MP3 file and as a link to a private YouTube or Vimeo link that shows your creative adjustments to Covid-19 as you have found creative expression, new creative working or learning experiences. You can also send us 150 words and an accompanying image on the question ‘How have you creatively found comfort within discomfort?’ Spoken text on the video recording may be transcribed and you will be given the opportunity to review any transcripts. If you do decide to withdraw from the project, you will be asked what you want to happen to data you have provided up to that point, but please note that after July 2021 anonymised data can no longer be removed from the study.
All the information that we collect about you during the course of the research will be kept strictly confidential. You will not be able to be identified in any ensuing reports or publications. Film, image and text data will be stored in an anonymised form in the Goldsmiths Research Online data repository. Data from the whole project may be collected into anonymised datasets, in which no individual can be identified. Data that has consent for online presentation will be accessible internationally on The Centre for Arts and Learning online forums. The data collected during the course of the project might be used for additional or subsequent research. If you choose to send in film data in which you are identifiable you will be asked to indicate this on the accompanying consent form. Is this in the consent form?
Even with voices and faces disguised, identities are not truly anonymous on film and photographs that contain human subjects. If one or more human subjects are included in the film or images, they will need to have information sheets and consent forms also. Confidentiality will be respected subject to legal constraints and professional guidelines. Please note that assurances on confidentiality will be strictly adhered to unless evidence of wrongdoing or potential harm is uncovered. In such cases Goldsmiths may be obliged to contact relevant statutory bodies or agencies.
To continue your experiences of finding comfort within the new discomfort zones of social distancing, please only submit material that you have watched and read yourself and are happy with others seeing. A benefit of this project is for participants to be able to celebrate their resilience and creative ingenuity in making new creative learning experiences possible for themselves and others.
Your experience of making arts practice could be therapeutic, however the research centre is not a counselling route. If you feel you need counselling about your experiences, options include self-referral to IAPT NHS Psychological Therapies Service; BPF Support is Key – for Key Workers, BME Health Forum, NHS BME Support and BAMEStream on Ubele.Org for Black and Minority Ethnic specific options, and Goldsmiths Wellbeing (wellbeing@gold.ac.uk) for staff and students at Goldsmiths. If you are working at a different workplace please also look into counselling options there, if you think this is necessary.
The results of the research might be used in a film presented on the CAL webpage and on Instagram. There could be a conference, seminar or symposium that connects with the research project. Results of the research are intended for publication. A copy of the film and published findings will be offered to each participant.
The Goldsmiths Educational Studies department is organising the research and it is approved by a (departmental ethics committee or by the Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee, Goldsmiths, University of London).
If you have any concerns about your participation or about the project in general, you should first contact Dr. Miranda Matthews, m.matthews@gold.ac.uk If you feel your complaint has not been satisfactorily handled, you can contact the Chair of the Goldsmiths Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee (via the committee secretary on (+44) (0)20 7717 3338 or reisc@gold.ac.uk).’
Thank you for reading this information sheet and for considering whether to take part in this research project.
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Centre for Arts and Learning 2020-21
Affective Digital Presence in Creative Practice Tuesday 3 N... more Centre for Arts and Learning 2020-21
Affective Digital Presence in Creative Practice Tuesday 3 November, 6.30-8
Miranda Matthews and Francis Gilbert
In these times of challenge and change we are called upon to reflect on what it means to connect with one another through digital platforms. Since March 2020 many of our physical embodied interactions in practice have been resituated and transferred, as forms of possibility in virtual learning environments. These digital platforms can seem like sanitised machinic assemblages in which the affect of human presence sometimes make itself apparent, and sometimes finds ways of forming resistance. Presence of the other is at once incredibly close, and yet phenomenally distant. Technology can create rapid connections, yet many do not yet have the resources to access emerging opportunities. These are some of the factors that raise important debates in the arts and learning. In this year’s programme of CAL Events we will be looking at how arts practitioners interact with digital interfaces to build affective and inclusive connections, for emotive and interactive learning environments.
Miranda Matthews and Francis Gilbert will be discussing the significance of affect in online learning spaces through arts practice. The combination of free writing and drawing as emotive, expressive, emancipating and cathartic experiences will be contextualised through interdisciplinary practice research. This evening will include workshops in free writing and drawing, as practice based explorations of what it feels like to be human in an online space.
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Conference Presentations by Miranda Matthews
Art practice can be seen to challenge normative perspectives through a disruptive discursive and ... more Art practice can be seen to challenge normative perspectives through a disruptive discursive and aesthetic presence. Such creative interjection may be seen as Rancière terms it in Dissensus as an introduction of ‘strangeness’ for an audience, and in learning situations. I will explore forms of creative release in critical pedagogy, and possible boundaries of such interactions, through what I have observed to be conditions for ‘student satisfaction’ as a positive response to learning. Concerns about positive responses could potentially shape the kinds of disruptions introduced in arts pedagogies, and in workshops with artists. Consideration of the affective factors of social relation are therefore of relevance to the discussion. This reflection has emerged in connection with experiences in teaching on arts practice modules on postgraduate and undergraduate courses. The conference audience will be invited to respond to different forms of address, as may be offered by artists in pedagogical situations. Theoretical input from existentialism, as disruption of the privileged comfort zone, and posthumanism in relation to affirmative affective interaction will also input to the discussion.
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Addressing changes in conditions for practitioners that can be related to education policy in Eng... more Addressing changes in conditions for practitioners that can be related to education policy in England since 2010, this article presents issues faced by teachers of art and design and theorises strategies of response. I will discuss how exacting and standardising conditions in institutions can be parried in empowering explorations of arts practice, referring to concepts of ‘power through transparency’ via Foucault and an ethics of ambiguity through Beauvoir. Strategies considered here include adjustments made in department ethos, methods of resourcing social practice, and the individual and collaborative responses of practitioners. The intention of this research is to explore possibilities for building theoretical and practical support.
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The proposal for this workshop corresponds with my practice-based research which aims to address ... more The proposal for this workshop corresponds with my practice-based research which aims to address issues of cultural representation in the arts for under-represented groups, notably black and ethnic minority students and white working class students (Warwick Commission, 2015; Sutton Report, 2016). As a method for affirming diverse creative subjectivities, I explore a connection with Foucault’s technology of self, which he terms an ‘art of the self’ (Foucault, 1996). The intention is to investigate possibilities for self-definition through praxis – defined as practice informed by theory.
Foucault returned to ancient Greek philosophy to identify techniques for empowering and nurturing the self, which are presented as 1) Care of the Self, 2) Self Knowledge and 3) Parrhesia – or frank speaking (Foucault 1988, Foucault 2005). Implications for these reflexive processes will be considered in this workshop through discursive practice-based activities, which will now be outlined.
Introduction: The three technologies of self, are explained as they may inform processes of self-definition, creative decision making, and frank self-expression. These concepts would also be discussed as they relate to the work of contemporary artists. The workshop would then provide participants with a space to focus on Parrhesia, in order to engage with the meaning of this concept in more depth.
Activity 1: Participants are asked to identify significant historical figures who have spoken out for their beliefs, against dominant social structures. In pairs they discuss their own history of vocal challenge, and also times they have been afraid to speak out.
Each person then has space to talk about what it is in society that restricts creativity for themselves and for others they identify with. The other person in the pair writes down the speaker’s key expressions on a length of paper fixed to the wall. In review, the group considers how this work could be situated to raise awareness of the issues in focus.
Activity 2: Participants talk about their current fears for society. They are asked to draw symbolic images of their fears, which may be abstract or representational. They then surround the symbolic drawings with representations of that which makes them less afraid. Participants review the effects of the combined drawings.
The emphasis of the workshop is on reflecting how the processes involved, as creative vocalisations, may be applied in inclusive pedagogies. The workshop activities are intended to benefit participants working in all disciplines, who would like to explore reflexive, philosophical self-awareness in practice.
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This presentation will begin with an Introduction to the area of research, in the context of the... more This presentation will begin with an Introduction to the area of research, in the context of the policy changes which informed the research question. The thesis developed around a comparative philosophical analysis, referring to Sartre and Foucault. This presentation explores a Sartrean thematic emerging in PhD data analysis.
The empirical data presented was gathered in 2009, in the brief era of the ‘New 2008 Curriculum’ – which now exists only as a suspended idealised image of diversity and greater inter-disciplinary possibilities. The conflict between creative practitioners in schools and colleges is now more intense, in the drive towards Austerity Britain (Youdell & McGimpsey, 2015). However the attitudes of practitioners in formal education in 2009 were either occluding or antagonistic. This prompts the question of whether the interface between policy and practice will always be conflicted whatever the policy initiative.
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In this paper I propose to present an exploration of processes of negotiated autonomy in educatio... more In this paper I propose to present an exploration of processes of negotiated autonomy in education. The concept of negotiated autonomy is a term I have arrived at through applying a Foucauldian analysis to my observations of how subjects reflect upon their situations within institutions, and engage in theory and practice to regain agency from institutional control mechanisms.
At this point in time teachers and practitioners in education are working in an environment of market forces. These economic drives permeate the regulatory pressures of Ofsted and the performance management of teachers. It is a climate in which the subject is levered through processes that are intended to shape personal discourses of creative freedom, autonomy and productivity, channelling these drives towards institutional requirements.
I will refer to doctoral research data collected between 2009-2012 from teachers, gallery educators and students. I will also draw upon subsequent observations as a teacher in sixth-form education and a lecturer in Education Studies.
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Published Articles by Miranda Matthews
Art and design education is in need of adaptive, sustainable strategies. In the context of rapid policy change, artist teachers also need arguments that can act as levers in discussions where the arts are brought to the table for justification. I will argue here that the collaborative networking of artist teachers offers strategies for tackling the immanent contexts for practice.
Authors responded to the Centre for Arts and Learning's theme for 2019-20 in special edition of the International Journal of Art and Design Education.
Miranda Matthews Abstract
Learning in the arts has the potential to be a co-constructive means of inquiry for students, which enables experience of the self in relation to practice. This research explores a practice-based investigation of agency as self-definition, amid normative social constructions of the subject. The focus for data analysis is a project taught to BTEC Level 2 Art and Design students in a deprived area of North London (2010–12). A dialogue is presented between the implications for Sartre’s theory of free-will and a Foucauldian critique of social construction. Applications for this comparative theory are discussed here as a form of resistance to the compression of learning identities in art and design, and across the curriculum. This is an approach which encourages emancipated self-representation, acknowledging cultural diversity, for a discursive environment viable at all levels of study. In exploring the data, a positioning of free-will with social responsibility is identified as an inclusive forum for creative understanding, and the tolerance of difference.
Centre for Arts & Learning Events & Projects 20-21 by Miranda Matthews
Finding Comfort within Discomfort:
Dr. Miranda Matthews, Educational Studies, m.matthews@gold.ac.uk:
Dear [Participant]
You are being invited to take part in a research project. Before you decide whether or not to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully.
With the unprecedented circumstances of Covid-19, academics, students and people in all walks of life have had to adjust to being within what might previously have seemed to be the ‘comfort zone’ of their own home, but through limitations on travel and social gathering has changed its significance for many. This research project proposes to explore how domestic and local space is explored in new or extended forms of creative self-expression that support wellbeing.
The arts are facing a time of great adjustment, in which the online interfaces for public engagement and learning opportunities could be more responsive to the experiences of change in localities and in everyday lives. This project intends to find out new ways in which creative learning communities can be built, and to make a new interactive interface between the research centre, staff, students and public audiences for the arts and learning.
Participants are asked to submit a film of 30-60 seconds, or an image and 150 words that gives an outward facing view of how they have creatively explored the discomfort zones of lockdown and social distancing. These submissions will become research data that can be thematically analysed, presented on online CAL forums and in research publications that explore creative responses to lockdown and social distancing in relation to Covid-19. Participation in the research is open to Masters, PhD and PGCE students and staff in Educational Studies, and to adult members of the public who engage with the Centre for Arts and Learning in its online forums. We would like to encourage a diversity of response including representation from BAME communities. The project will continue for the duration of social distancing regulations, or until July 2021, whichever is the longer time phase. Participants may also be asked to discuss their creative forms of self-expression and new learning ventures since March 2020 in interviews.
You have been invited to participate because we would like to hear about the ways you have adjusted your practice and lifestyles, or added new outlets that are comforting and supportive of wellbeing. The creative adjustments that you are making to the ways in which you work, learn and express yourselves through creative practice will help inform research into how the arts and learning are evolving as an adjustment to Covid-19 and experiences of social distancing from March 2020. We hope that participants will benefit from the project in being able to celebrate their resourceful independent or collaborative creative self-expression, and to see this response to Covid-19 social distancing as a contribution to the learning experiences of others.
It is entirely up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you decide to do so, you will be given this information sheet to keep and will be asked to give your informed consent on the accompanying consent form. You can withdraw from the project at any time without giving a reason. Neither refusal to participate nor withdrawal will have any impact on marks or future studies in the case of students, or on current or future employment conditions for staff.
If you take part you will be asked to create a short film of up to a minute and send this to us as an MP3 file and as a link to a private YouTube or Vimeo link that shows your creative adjustments to Covid-19 as you have found creative expression, new creative working or learning experiences. You can also send us 150 words and an accompanying image on the question ‘How have you creatively found comfort within discomfort?’ Spoken text on the video recording may be transcribed and you will be given the opportunity to review any transcripts. If you do decide to withdraw from the project, you will be asked what you want to happen to data you have provided up to that point, but please note that after July 2021 anonymised data can no longer be removed from the study.
All the information that we collect about you during the course of the research will be kept strictly confidential. You will not be able to be identified in any ensuing reports or publications. Film, image and text data will be stored in an anonymised form in the Goldsmiths Research Online data repository. Data from the whole project may be collected into anonymised datasets, in which no individual can be identified. Data that has consent for online presentation will be accessible internationally on The Centre for Arts and Learning online forums. The data collected during the course of the project might be used for additional or subsequent research. If you choose to send in film data in which you are identifiable you will be asked to indicate this on the accompanying consent form. Is this in the consent form?
Even with voices and faces disguised, identities are not truly anonymous on film and photographs that contain human subjects. If one or more human subjects are included in the film or images, they will need to have information sheets and consent forms also. Confidentiality will be respected subject to legal constraints and professional guidelines. Please note that assurances on confidentiality will be strictly adhered to unless evidence of wrongdoing or potential harm is uncovered. In such cases Goldsmiths may be obliged to contact relevant statutory bodies or agencies.
To continue your experiences of finding comfort within the new discomfort zones of social distancing, please only submit material that you have watched and read yourself and are happy with others seeing. A benefit of this project is for participants to be able to celebrate their resilience and creative ingenuity in making new creative learning experiences possible for themselves and others.
Your experience of making arts practice could be therapeutic, however the research centre is not a counselling route. If you feel you need counselling about your experiences, options include self-referral to IAPT NHS Psychological Therapies Service; BPF Support is Key – for Key Workers, BME Health Forum, NHS BME Support and BAMEStream on Ubele.Org for Black and Minority Ethnic specific options, and Goldsmiths Wellbeing (wellbeing@gold.ac.uk) for staff and students at Goldsmiths. If you are working at a different workplace please also look into counselling options there, if you think this is necessary.
The results of the research might be used in a film presented on the CAL webpage and on Instagram. There could be a conference, seminar or symposium that connects with the research project. Results of the research are intended for publication. A copy of the film and published findings will be offered to each participant.
The Goldsmiths Educational Studies department is organising the research and it is approved by a (departmental ethics committee or by the Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee, Goldsmiths, University of London).
If you have any concerns about your participation or about the project in general, you should first contact Dr. Miranda Matthews, m.matthews@gold.ac.uk If you feel your complaint has not been satisfactorily handled, you can contact the Chair of the Goldsmiths Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee (via the committee secretary on (+44) (0)20 7717 3338 or reisc@gold.ac.uk).’
Thank you for reading this information sheet and for considering whether to take part in this research project.
Affective Digital Presence in Creative Practice Tuesday 3 November, 6.30-8
Miranda Matthews and Francis Gilbert
In these times of challenge and change we are called upon to reflect on what it means to connect with one another through digital platforms. Since March 2020 many of our physical embodied interactions in practice have been resituated and transferred, as forms of possibility in virtual learning environments. These digital platforms can seem like sanitised machinic assemblages in which the affect of human presence sometimes make itself apparent, and sometimes finds ways of forming resistance. Presence of the other is at once incredibly close, and yet phenomenally distant. Technology can create rapid connections, yet many do not yet have the resources to access emerging opportunities. These are some of the factors that raise important debates in the arts and learning. In this year’s programme of CAL Events we will be looking at how arts practitioners interact with digital interfaces to build affective and inclusive connections, for emotive and interactive learning environments.
Miranda Matthews and Francis Gilbert will be discussing the significance of affect in online learning spaces through arts practice. The combination of free writing and drawing as emotive, expressive, emancipating and cathartic experiences will be contextualised through interdisciplinary practice research. This evening will include workshops in free writing and drawing, as practice based explorations of what it feels like to be human in an online space.
Conference Presentations by Miranda Matthews
Foucault returned to ancient Greek philosophy to identify techniques for empowering and nurturing the self, which are presented as 1) Care of the Self, 2) Self Knowledge and 3) Parrhesia – or frank speaking (Foucault 1988, Foucault 2005). Implications for these reflexive processes will be considered in this workshop through discursive practice-based activities, which will now be outlined.
Introduction: The three technologies of self, are explained as they may inform processes of self-definition, creative decision making, and frank self-expression. These concepts would also be discussed as they relate to the work of contemporary artists. The workshop would then provide participants with a space to focus on Parrhesia, in order to engage with the meaning of this concept in more depth.
Activity 1: Participants are asked to identify significant historical figures who have spoken out for their beliefs, against dominant social structures. In pairs they discuss their own history of vocal challenge, and also times they have been afraid to speak out.
Each person then has space to talk about what it is in society that restricts creativity for themselves and for others they identify with. The other person in the pair writes down the speaker’s key expressions on a length of paper fixed to the wall. In review, the group considers how this work could be situated to raise awareness of the issues in focus.
Activity 2: Participants talk about their current fears for society. They are asked to draw symbolic images of their fears, which may be abstract or representational. They then surround the symbolic drawings with representations of that which makes them less afraid. Participants review the effects of the combined drawings.
The emphasis of the workshop is on reflecting how the processes involved, as creative vocalisations, may be applied in inclusive pedagogies. The workshop activities are intended to benefit participants working in all disciplines, who would like to explore reflexive, philosophical self-awareness in practice.
The empirical data presented was gathered in 2009, in the brief era of the ‘New 2008 Curriculum’ – which now exists only as a suspended idealised image of diversity and greater inter-disciplinary possibilities. The conflict between creative practitioners in schools and colleges is now more intense, in the drive towards Austerity Britain (Youdell & McGimpsey, 2015). However the attitudes of practitioners in formal education in 2009 were either occluding or antagonistic. This prompts the question of whether the interface between policy and practice will always be conflicted whatever the policy initiative.
At this point in time teachers and practitioners in education are working in an environment of market forces. These economic drives permeate the regulatory pressures of Ofsted and the performance management of teachers. It is a climate in which the subject is levered through processes that are intended to shape personal discourses of creative freedom, autonomy and productivity, channelling these drives towards institutional requirements.
I will refer to doctoral research data collected between 2009-2012 from teachers, gallery educators and students. I will also draw upon subsequent observations as a teacher in sixth-form education and a lecturer in Education Studies.
Art and design education is in need of adaptive, sustainable strategies. In the context of rapid policy change, artist teachers also need arguments that can act as levers in discussions where the arts are brought to the table for justification. I will argue here that the collaborative networking of artist teachers offers strategies for tackling the immanent contexts for practice.
Authors responded to the Centre for Arts and Learning's theme for 2019-20 in special edition of the International Journal of Art and Design Education.
Miranda Matthews Abstract
Learning in the arts has the potential to be a co-constructive means of inquiry for students, which enables experience of the self in relation to practice. This research explores a practice-based investigation of agency as self-definition, amid normative social constructions of the subject. The focus for data analysis is a project taught to BTEC Level 2 Art and Design students in a deprived area of North London (2010–12). A dialogue is presented between the implications for Sartre’s theory of free-will and a Foucauldian critique of social construction. Applications for this comparative theory are discussed here as a form of resistance to the compression of learning identities in art and design, and across the curriculum. This is an approach which encourages emancipated self-representation, acknowledging cultural diversity, for a discursive environment viable at all levels of study. In exploring the data, a positioning of free-will with social responsibility is identified as an inclusive forum for creative understanding, and the tolerance of difference.
Finding Comfort within Discomfort:
Dr. Miranda Matthews, Educational Studies, m.matthews@gold.ac.uk:
Dear [Participant]
You are being invited to take part in a research project. Before you decide whether or not to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully.
With the unprecedented circumstances of Covid-19, academics, students and people in all walks of life have had to adjust to being within what might previously have seemed to be the ‘comfort zone’ of their own home, but through limitations on travel and social gathering has changed its significance for many. This research project proposes to explore how domestic and local space is explored in new or extended forms of creative self-expression that support wellbeing.
The arts are facing a time of great adjustment, in which the online interfaces for public engagement and learning opportunities could be more responsive to the experiences of change in localities and in everyday lives. This project intends to find out new ways in which creative learning communities can be built, and to make a new interactive interface between the research centre, staff, students and public audiences for the arts and learning.
Participants are asked to submit a film of 30-60 seconds, or an image and 150 words that gives an outward facing view of how they have creatively explored the discomfort zones of lockdown and social distancing. These submissions will become research data that can be thematically analysed, presented on online CAL forums and in research publications that explore creative responses to lockdown and social distancing in relation to Covid-19. Participation in the research is open to Masters, PhD and PGCE students and staff in Educational Studies, and to adult members of the public who engage with the Centre for Arts and Learning in its online forums. We would like to encourage a diversity of response including representation from BAME communities. The project will continue for the duration of social distancing regulations, or until July 2021, whichever is the longer time phase. Participants may also be asked to discuss their creative forms of self-expression and new learning ventures since March 2020 in interviews.
You have been invited to participate because we would like to hear about the ways you have adjusted your practice and lifestyles, or added new outlets that are comforting and supportive of wellbeing. The creative adjustments that you are making to the ways in which you work, learn and express yourselves through creative practice will help inform research into how the arts and learning are evolving as an adjustment to Covid-19 and experiences of social distancing from March 2020. We hope that participants will benefit from the project in being able to celebrate their resourceful independent or collaborative creative self-expression, and to see this response to Covid-19 social distancing as a contribution to the learning experiences of others.
It is entirely up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you decide to do so, you will be given this information sheet to keep and will be asked to give your informed consent on the accompanying consent form. You can withdraw from the project at any time without giving a reason. Neither refusal to participate nor withdrawal will have any impact on marks or future studies in the case of students, or on current or future employment conditions for staff.
If you take part you will be asked to create a short film of up to a minute and send this to us as an MP3 file and as a link to a private YouTube or Vimeo link that shows your creative adjustments to Covid-19 as you have found creative expression, new creative working or learning experiences. You can also send us 150 words and an accompanying image on the question ‘How have you creatively found comfort within discomfort?’ Spoken text on the video recording may be transcribed and you will be given the opportunity to review any transcripts. If you do decide to withdraw from the project, you will be asked what you want to happen to data you have provided up to that point, but please note that after July 2021 anonymised data can no longer be removed from the study.
All the information that we collect about you during the course of the research will be kept strictly confidential. You will not be able to be identified in any ensuing reports or publications. Film, image and text data will be stored in an anonymised form in the Goldsmiths Research Online data repository. Data from the whole project may be collected into anonymised datasets, in which no individual can be identified. Data that has consent for online presentation will be accessible internationally on The Centre for Arts and Learning online forums. The data collected during the course of the project might be used for additional or subsequent research. If you choose to send in film data in which you are identifiable you will be asked to indicate this on the accompanying consent form. Is this in the consent form?
Even with voices and faces disguised, identities are not truly anonymous on film and photographs that contain human subjects. If one or more human subjects are included in the film or images, they will need to have information sheets and consent forms also. Confidentiality will be respected subject to legal constraints and professional guidelines. Please note that assurances on confidentiality will be strictly adhered to unless evidence of wrongdoing or potential harm is uncovered. In such cases Goldsmiths may be obliged to contact relevant statutory bodies or agencies.
To continue your experiences of finding comfort within the new discomfort zones of social distancing, please only submit material that you have watched and read yourself and are happy with others seeing. A benefit of this project is for participants to be able to celebrate their resilience and creative ingenuity in making new creative learning experiences possible for themselves and others.
Your experience of making arts practice could be therapeutic, however the research centre is not a counselling route. If you feel you need counselling about your experiences, options include self-referral to IAPT NHS Psychological Therapies Service; BPF Support is Key – for Key Workers, BME Health Forum, NHS BME Support and BAMEStream on Ubele.Org for Black and Minority Ethnic specific options, and Goldsmiths Wellbeing (wellbeing@gold.ac.uk) for staff and students at Goldsmiths. If you are working at a different workplace please also look into counselling options there, if you think this is necessary.
The results of the research might be used in a film presented on the CAL webpage and on Instagram. There could be a conference, seminar or symposium that connects with the research project. Results of the research are intended for publication. A copy of the film and published findings will be offered to each participant.
The Goldsmiths Educational Studies department is organising the research and it is approved by a (departmental ethics committee or by the Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee, Goldsmiths, University of London).
If you have any concerns about your participation or about the project in general, you should first contact Dr. Miranda Matthews, m.matthews@gold.ac.uk If you feel your complaint has not been satisfactorily handled, you can contact the Chair of the Goldsmiths Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee (via the committee secretary on (+44) (0)20 7717 3338 or reisc@gold.ac.uk).’
Thank you for reading this information sheet and for considering whether to take part in this research project.
Affective Digital Presence in Creative Practice Tuesday 3 November, 6.30-8
Miranda Matthews and Francis Gilbert
In these times of challenge and change we are called upon to reflect on what it means to connect with one another through digital platforms. Since March 2020 many of our physical embodied interactions in practice have been resituated and transferred, as forms of possibility in virtual learning environments. These digital platforms can seem like sanitised machinic assemblages in which the affect of human presence sometimes make itself apparent, and sometimes finds ways of forming resistance. Presence of the other is at once incredibly close, and yet phenomenally distant. Technology can create rapid connections, yet many do not yet have the resources to access emerging opportunities. These are some of the factors that raise important debates in the arts and learning. In this year’s programme of CAL Events we will be looking at how arts practitioners interact with digital interfaces to build affective and inclusive connections, for emotive and interactive learning environments.
Miranda Matthews and Francis Gilbert will be discussing the significance of affect in online learning spaces through arts practice. The combination of free writing and drawing as emotive, expressive, emancipating and cathartic experiences will be contextualised through interdisciplinary practice research. This evening will include workshops in free writing and drawing, as practice based explorations of what it feels like to be human in an online space.
Foucault returned to ancient Greek philosophy to identify techniques for empowering and nurturing the self, which are presented as 1) Care of the Self, 2) Self Knowledge and 3) Parrhesia – or frank speaking (Foucault 1988, Foucault 2005). Implications for these reflexive processes will be considered in this workshop through discursive practice-based activities, which will now be outlined.
Introduction: The three technologies of self, are explained as they may inform processes of self-definition, creative decision making, and frank self-expression. These concepts would also be discussed as they relate to the work of contemporary artists. The workshop would then provide participants with a space to focus on Parrhesia, in order to engage with the meaning of this concept in more depth.
Activity 1: Participants are asked to identify significant historical figures who have spoken out for their beliefs, against dominant social structures. In pairs they discuss their own history of vocal challenge, and also times they have been afraid to speak out.
Each person then has space to talk about what it is in society that restricts creativity for themselves and for others they identify with. The other person in the pair writes down the speaker’s key expressions on a length of paper fixed to the wall. In review, the group considers how this work could be situated to raise awareness of the issues in focus.
Activity 2: Participants talk about their current fears for society. They are asked to draw symbolic images of their fears, which may be abstract or representational. They then surround the symbolic drawings with representations of that which makes them less afraid. Participants review the effects of the combined drawings.
The emphasis of the workshop is on reflecting how the processes involved, as creative vocalisations, may be applied in inclusive pedagogies. The workshop activities are intended to benefit participants working in all disciplines, who would like to explore reflexive, philosophical self-awareness in practice.
The empirical data presented was gathered in 2009, in the brief era of the ‘New 2008 Curriculum’ – which now exists only as a suspended idealised image of diversity and greater inter-disciplinary possibilities. The conflict between creative practitioners in schools and colleges is now more intense, in the drive towards Austerity Britain (Youdell & McGimpsey, 2015). However the attitudes of practitioners in formal education in 2009 were either occluding or antagonistic. This prompts the question of whether the interface between policy and practice will always be conflicted whatever the policy initiative.
At this point in time teachers and practitioners in education are working in an environment of market forces. These economic drives permeate the regulatory pressures of Ofsted and the performance management of teachers. It is a climate in which the subject is levered through processes that are intended to shape personal discourses of creative freedom, autonomy and productivity, channelling these drives towards institutional requirements.
I will refer to doctoral research data collected between 2009-2012 from teachers, gallery educators and students. I will also draw upon subsequent observations as a teacher in sixth-form education and a lecturer in Education Studies.
I have been a teacher in sixth form art education throughout this research and have concentrated on this area of education, although I think that some of my findings could be applicable in other areas. Research into the potential for applying philosophy in further education, particularly in practice, is I think an area that has not yet been developed.
To explore my leading question I have analysed data from semi-structured interviews of three research groups: teachers and practitioners, policy makers and sixth form students. I gathered responses from participants in these pedagogical domains to enable a comparative approach between different angles upon issues of freedom and autonomy. I wanted to explore the interface between subjects with polarities of experience, including the precarious interface between educators and policy makers. My reflections on the extent to which policy regulates agency in art education have extended from the 2009 interviews to consider policy changes since the 2010 election.
I have viewed the data presented by my focal participants through the conceptual frameworks of Sartrean and Foucauldian philosophy. I have also conducted action research of my own teaching practice. I planned and taught projects for students which investigate the potential for using existential and post-structural theory as a contextual resource, and as a critical tool for encouraging discursive learning spaces and a more questioning and proactive engagement with learning.