What a joy to wear the student hat once again and being on the other side of the camera. For the past 5 years it has been me preparing content, running lectures, seminars and workshops so being able to undertake the activities myself felt like a real luxury. With our jobs melting into all corners of life at times, we sometimes forget the value of stopping to read, reflect, and further our own practice and perspectives.
When first opening up my pre-workshop reading, An a/r/tographic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice (Osler et. al., 2019) I was worried. What is métissage?! What does it mean how this article posits the self-in-relation to theory and practice!? What do we mean by opening spaces?! This called for my phone switching to “Do not disturb” mode as the impatient chorus of Outlook dings would not compliment my journey in deciphering the article’s key purpose.
With a coffee – ok multiple coffees – in hand over a course of a couple hours, I visited the auto-ethnographic experiences of Trish, Isabelle, Ariana and Sandrine; 4 artist/researcher/teachers reflecting upon their roles. Each voice opened windows into their daily lives and in turn sparked questions, reflections, and lots of scribbled notes in my new sketchbook (a sweet Christmas gift from my parents). I like how my reflections were next to the page of a sketch I drew earlier that morning of our Labrador Archie.
Some of the notes I made included:
- Seeing the artist (or teacher! or researcher!) must be cast aside for the “magic to happen”.
- Self-reflective research is always in the middle of constant movement – never a begining or end.
- Life writing and creating deepens theory and practice
- We are ALL learning from each other.
- It is never about determining an absolute truth but creating assemblages of transformation. (what a great notion by Isabelle. It reminds me of puzzle pieces coming together but those pieces are contsantly shape-shifting leading to new and exciting images).
I received a lot of comfort and confidence from this article as through other’s reflections it helped reassure me how there is never an “end” (to research/a project etc…) and that wearing 3 hats (artist/researcher/teacher) does not mean that you HAVE to spread yourself thing. Different roles merge together and you cannot have 1 without the other 2. I sometimes worry that I am doing too much and lack directly because I am not “just” a researcher but of course that is not the right (or only) way to look at it. Also life isn’t about crossing off something from the to-do list.
It is always in “constant movement”.