Embracing the Generative (Im)possibility of Art Education: Material-Conceptual Provocations for Research and Practice

Christina Hanawalt, Assistant Professor of Art Education, will describe the theorization, practice, and on-going development of a research project she has been working on for the past two years. What began as a pilot initiative has resulted in a grant-funded research study that will be implemented with a co-researcher during the 2019-2020 school-year. A major part of the project has involved composing material-conceptual provocations for early career art teachers who are graduates of the art education programs at UGA and Appalachian State University. Drawing on the power of artistic concepts and practices to make something generative out of the ambiguous and the unknown, the provocations implemented through this study aim to acknowledge and even embrace the (im)possibility of teaching in the face of an educational climate that constructs pedagogical relations as controllable, manageable, and even auditable.