You First Then Me : Exploring Complexity with Art Workshops

Abstract: This work takes as its starting point the idea that awareness and understanding of the complex nature of relationships, among people and the natural and built environment, is of crucial importance against the background of the ongoing environmental crisis. The author explores how holding art workshops can contribute with specific knowledge about this complexity. In early 2020, the author held art workshops in the South African port city of Durban, in a gallery area adjacent to a park. Qualitative methods, including ethnography and visual methods, were put to use in the study which developed from this project. The stages of fieldwork, processing and analysis are described in detail. The study’s posthumanist theoretical framework draws in insights from Arts-Based Environmental Education and Art Education for Sustainable Development, as well as current thinking about design and creativity. These ideas, together with the choice of methods, facilitated an awareness of correspondences, or productive similarities, among elements from the workshops and the surrounding area. Noticing correspondences like these widened the project’s focus to include informants, groups and stories from the edges of the field, and opened up possibilities for relating local insights to larger concerns. The study considers how holding art workshops can provide opportunities for research into environmental, educational and social issues. It concludes with a discussion about how thinking about complexity can be productive within the field of Art Education.