The role of the Image bank in the CC-project
The Creative Connections project’s aim was to explore and develop ways of increasing understanding of European identity among children and young people. The image bank works as a model for analysis of contemporary art, which allows for collaborative activities and dialogue in a multicultural environment. Students from different countries are making their own work based on the image bank and interaction among them takes place on the project’s blog site.
The image bank offers various approaches to art so that teachers can deal with the themes of national identity and multiculturalism , “European connectedness”, from different perspectives. The image bank can be approached as different learning entities formed through the various roles of art. The image bank has been divided into categories A-E. The A category approaches the dimensions of the students personal growth by identifying different aspects of identity, and the B category approaches identity from the surrounding culture. The C category activates students to act as reporters who pay attention to the cultural environment. In the D category, culture serves as a guide for seeing things in different ways. In the E category, activism is the guiding factor for encouraging students to participate and act in their own environment.
Area of research interest (200 words) and two key texts that underpin the context of my research
Dr Mirja Hiltunen
Research topic:
My earlier studies have examined community-based art education in northern sociocultural environments. The studies were accomplished through interaction between multifield projects and visual art teacher education and I have used action research-based mode (see for ex Hiltunen 2010, 2008). Artistic action research is a work in progress in the department of Art Education. Creative Connections- project offers a possibility to develop this approach and research methods further. My interest area on Creative Connections project is on the development work of the master level curriculum and PhD studies at the Faculty of Art and Design. I am supervising three master theses and tutoring one dissertation as a second supervisor. The process between the researchers is collaborative. My area of research interest is in the context of participation and agency - especially at the multicultural Sami school in Utsjoki and its collaboration in this international context. So, from the topics listed in Creative Connections, my research interest would be part of:
- Changing the notion of Art Education - Different pedagogical approaches to Art Education that we have developed through the CC project.
- Notions of Collaboration - how that experience has been developed through the CC project
- How is contemporary art a space for learning?
Hiltunen, M. 2010: Slow Activism: Art in progress in the North. In Aini Linjakumpu & Sandra Wallenius-Korkalo (eds.) Progress or Perish. Northern Perspectives on Social Change. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 119–138.
Hiltunen, M. (2008) Community-based Art Education in the North – a Space for Agency? In Coutts, G- & Jokela, T. (eds.) Art, Community and Environment. Educational Perspectives. Bristol: Intellectbook, 91–112.
Annamari Manninen
MA, PhD–student, University of Lapland
Research topic:
Different pedagogical approaches in using the web database of contemporary artworks in Creative Connections project to explore the (European) identity.
My research interest is concentrating on the pedagogical uses of the artworks of the CC database. It combines several dimensions of the project: blogs and the use of contemporary art with the context of European citizenship and identity. This interest rose from the different methods in using contemporary art in the schools during the CC project seen on the school visits and in the blogs through all participating countries. My area of research would be the use of contemporary art in art education. The Background for the research is built on the process of selecting and categorizing the artwork database in the first part of the project. In Creative Connections the artworks were used not (only) to study contemporary art itself but as an expression of European identity. The key question is how contemporary art (as digital representation on web) can be used to handle different issues? The data would consist of the case studies and lesson plans from all the participating schools, supported by the pupils works and postings on the blogs, documentation of the lessons, interviews of the pupils and teachers from the school visits in Finland.
From the topics listed in Creative Connections, my research interest would be part of:
4. Changing the notion of Art Education - Different pedagogical approaches to Art Education that we have developed through the CC project.
Connected to: 3. How is contemporary art a space for learning?
And partly to: 5. The CC blogging experience
Master's Thesis in Art Education
Merja Isomaa-James
MA , Finish Research Team, University of Lapland
"Nykytaide dialogin edistäjänä : teoskuvapankin rakentuminen kansainvälisessä hankkeessa " [Contemporary art in promoting dialogue- the construction of an image bank for an international project], Master’s Theses, University or Lapland, Faculty of art and design, Art Education, Rovaniemi, 2013. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:ula-201312181387
Research topic:
The research focus was the process of constructing the image bank. The core of the action research project is the participating schools’ students’ perceptions of local, national and European identities and their relationships. The research engages art education, particularly contemporary art pedagogy. Isomaa-James’s master’s thesis research material was collected through action research between April and October 2012. She focused on explaining the image bank selection process as a whole and illustrating the image selection through iconological analysis.
Important concepts related to this study are contemporary art, national and European identity. In addition, Isomaa-James reviewed the construction process of the image bank through emerging principles in curriculum, in particular supporting young people’s own cultural identity, active participation of their own perception of the environment and development and working in a multicultural community.
Terhi Kemppi
MA-student, Finish Research Team, University of Lapland
“Cultural Growth In An Artistic Blog Environment European Youth's Visual Dialogues For The Meanings of Cultural Identity”
Research topic:
The research focuses on the youth's visual dialogue in search for the meanings of cultural identity in the virtual blog environment. Within the theme as a Fine Art Educator Kemppi especially pays attention to the most explored contents and artistic work methods in the published blog artworks. She also evaluates how the blog environment serves as a space of cultural dialogue. The Research materials include the students' visual and written materials published in the blog environment, the group interviews, as well as interactive and reflective materials supported with research diaries, audio and video recordings. The Research is well rooted into the essential goals of the Creative Connections Research Programme, as it aims to empower and 'give a voice' to the participating youth themselves to share their processes of exploring the Cultural Identities and Intercultural understanding of being European. The theoretical background of the study derives from Socio-constructivist learning theory, Critical pedagogy as well as Experiential and Multicultural Art Education with an approach of Participatory Action Research.
The thesis will be published in 2014.
Henna Korpela
MA-student, Finish Research Team, University of Lapland
Research topic:
The first cycle of Henna Korpela’s research is the observations during the CC-pilot project in 2012 done together with Terhi Kemppi. Korpela is interested in the visual interaction that the students already use with their smartphones, as blogging in school is greatly affected by it. The smartphone was a device that was used for browsing to get ideas, multitasking, and also social media was a topic of discussion for the pupils. However, the students were hiding the phones under their tables and did not use them openly during the task. The phones were private.
Korpela is interested in what kinds of images do pupils take and share from the art class, what sort of a digital place is the Finnish art class, what does it tell as an image archive? What is this uncompelled visual communication in the classroom like, when it's shared with an international audience, and initiated by the pupils? In addition to the observations she made in the classroom, she researches instagram images taken in an elementary or high school art class (a hundred images tagged with #kuvistunti in Finnish) and the other tags that describe them with content analysis.
The thesis will be published in 2014.