Beryl Peters

1.41 Exploring Unexpected Territories and Shifting Grounds through Arts-Based Multiliteracies (Paper)

Beryl Peters – University of Manitoba, Canada

Julie Mongeon-Ferré – Université de Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, Canada

Abstract:

This paper presentation shares results from a Canadian critical participatory action research study that explores the shifting grounds of arts education within an interdisciplinary learning landscape. The presentation features the ways that visual arts learning invites deconstruction and construction of learning in primary to senior years public school contexts. The study was designed to occasion unexpected territories in art education using a pedagogical framework grounded in complexity theory and thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2006), a theory of multiliteracies (Kalantzis & Cope, 2023; New London Group, 1996) and a pedagogy of Arts-Based Multiliteracies (Peters & Mongeon-Ferré, 2024). A pedagogy of Arts-Based Multiliteracies features “humans actively making meaning and communicating through the sign system of the arts (dance, drama, media arts, music, and visual arts) interacting with other sign systems” (Peters & Mongeon-Ferré, 2024, p. 31). The presentation shares images of student art works that provide compelling evidence for how art affords students multiple opportunities to think and feel through image and to express their inner territory. Through image creation, students of all ages in participating English, French Immersion and français classrooms perceived, interpreted, and communicated unique understandings of their identities and the world. Arts-based learning afforded opportunities for students to explore unexpected emotional and physical territories that contributed to well-being and embodied learning (mind, body, spirit). Study results provide evidence for how visual arts in a pedagogy of arts-based multiliteracies can decolonize education and ensure inclusive and equitable learning opportunities for all learners. The presentation will share examples of visual art from inquiry and project-based learning in varying school and community contexts to describe the unexpected territories in art and arts-based education.