Susan Uhlig

9.14 Creative Retreats in the Anthropocene: Fostering Care, Community, and Emergence in Pedagogical Spaces (Panel)

Chair:

Amber Ward – Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA

Panellists:

Susan Uhlig – Penn State University, USA

Ann Rowson Love – Florida State University, USA

Emily Dellheim – Department of Art Education, Florida State University, USA

Abstract:

This presentation will explore how art/research retreats, as ‘unexpected territories,’ foster care and community in art and museum education with implications for personal and professional development. It examines their role in deepening our understanding of place through material culture and documenting intra-actions between beings and things (see Barad and Haraway). By highlighting retreats as inner and unexpected territories, the presentation addresses the importance of protected time and space to enable care for self and others. Attendees will gain insights into the transformative potential of these unforeseen experiences and learn how to effectively use them to promote self-care and community in their own learning/teaching spaces. Art/research retreats and residencies are perhaps underutilized in art and museum education.

This session offers four distinct perspectives on using retreats to explore unexpected encounters in the Anthropocene and to protect time and space for self-reflection, recharging, and building creativity through research and arts making in situ. Retreats offer profound impacts on our complex engagement with the Anthropocene that carry over into our pedagogies in the classroom and art museum. Opportunities for self-care that foster well-being and human-nature connectivity are ever more important in response to contemporary climate and political crises. The four panellists coming from unique perspectives–art education, museum education, doctoral candidates, and university faculty–highlight how a practice of retreats in learning/teaching fosters creativity, interconnectivity, and inclusivity facilitated by this serendipitous collaboration. Made for and by participants, retreats serve as spaces for personal and professional growth. In this way, these new relationships (us; you, as reviewers; panel attendees; and more) also become unexpected territories.