Trine Isaksen

4.21 Workshop da Vinci: Inviting Pupils to Become Co-creators and Co-researchers (Paper)

Trine Isaksen – Ålesund Municipality, Ålesund, Norway

Mariann Bjørkavoll Lervåg – Ålesund Municipality, Ålesund, Norway

Egil Ovesen – University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

Abstract:

Through collaborations with national, regional and local partners, Workshop da Vinci in Ålesund, Norway, provides art workshops for all schools in their municipality. The present study invites lower secondary school pupils to become co-creators and co-researchers in developing interdisciplinary art workshops for their own age group. The activities of Workshop da Vinci let pupils work hands-on with various techniques and artistic expressions. Each workshop is jointly led by two artists representing different forms of the arts. These interdisciplinary workshops are designed to be an integral part of the schools’ tuition in several subjects. 

The current study takes the inclusiveness and participation of pupils at Workshop da Vinci further. Within a framework of action research and participatory paradigm, we invite a group of pupils and teachers to be co-creators and co-researchers in a study to develop new workshop concepts, to integrate these in the everyday praxis at schools and to investigate what short and long-terms effects participation in the workshops can have. To make sure that the workshops will be accessible for all, we involve the local council for people with disabilities. This creative and collaborative inquiry encompasses, just as art practice does, experiential, presentational, propositional and practical knowing. 

The experiential knowing is the fundamental experience of our presence in the world and mutual encounters with things and other beings. This experiential knowing can be expressed and made sense of as presentational knowledge – taking the shape of various art forms – and as propositional knowledge formulated as statements about the world. Practical knowing is an embodied fulfilment of the other kinds of knowing. Our educational system has a tradition of emphasising propositional knowledge, while the present study explores how art-based workshops can provide learning experiences that includes a fuller set of the human forms of knowing.