Unfolding Art as Research

This collaborative research project, conducted over three semesters by a professor of art education and a preservice art educator utilized the a/r/tography methodology—an action research approach that explores environments through artistic and aesthetic inquiry (Irwin & Cosson, 2004). As co-researchers, we engaged with contemporary art and art education texts through dialogue and artmaking. Inspired by Graeme Sullivan’s (2005) work in legitimizing art practice as a form of scholarly inquiry, we chose to create mixed media accordion fold books, a format significant in book arts and modeled after the Dresden Codex (12th century), the oldest surviving book in the Americas. If the structure could hold the complexities of Mayan cosmology, we felt it would effectively encapsulate our research. Intellectually, our project was centered around the philosophical work of Byung-Chul Han (2015), which frequently engages visual art, media theory, and aesthetics and whose exploration of the "acceleration of contemporary life” informed our application to art education. We found Han’s (2015) insights on burnout and mental health especially relevant for art educators, arguing that constant digital connectivity can drain creative energy—a challenge for art teachers balancing personal artistry with professional duties, leading to early career burnout. Our research aligns with a/r/tography’s rhizomatic goals, as defined by Deleuze and Guattari (1980), by exploring the interconnected spaces of artmaking, research, and teaching (Irwin, 2013). We plan to document our findings and co-author a paper, offering strategies for implementing similar research initiatives across the educational continuum fostering artist-teacher-research mindsets.