Engaging in Materiality

Issues in Art and Design Education

Abstract

In the training of art and design educators, we must not overlook modes of engagement that can build capacities for connecting theory to practice through creative research and connections to the physical materiality of art. Whether online or on-the-ground learning, artist-teachers must not disconnect from the power of engagement with and the materiality of art. This paper places a focus on ways that teacher training programs can anticipate and activate attitudes of new materialism and design thinking, providing a much-needed anchor in the digital age. With a contemplative view of art practice as research, projects in an art and design education program elevate opportunities for exchanging understanding, promoting dialogue, and approaching learning and research as relationship. Intentionality in the ways that the practice of teaching itself is also materiality, as a living practice, along with the training teachers as designers and facilitators of cultures of making, thinking, and learning are discussed.