Life excavation through the imaginarium: An emancipatory model of arts -based inquiry

摘要

The focus of this work is to investigate in what ways arts practices facilitate transformation within the life contexts of the researcher and a participating artist. Utilizing phenomenological, auto-ethnographic inquiry in partnership with studio practices, the study draws upon reflective, dialogic interactions with lifeworld experiences to evoke greater self-insight and to generate creative possibilities and new ways of being and seeing. Themes of embodied awareness, rhizomatic thinking, and self-intervention emerge as important agents of change in personal intervention and social restoration.;The findings from the shared self-inquiry are synthesized into a reflective arts-based pedagogy, a visual inquiry journal called the Imaginarium. This model guides the self-inquiry of relevant themes of human concern using queries rooted in lived experience and cultural inquiry. Documented by visual expression, reflective writing, visual culture collage, and performance, the method facilitates empathic dialogue as a means to excavate embedded perceptions, and to heighten self-awareness and social responsibility. Three models are provided that guide pre-service students, change-agents, and recovery groups into arts-based encounters of deep reflection, and active critical investigation.