Creative Interactions: Phase 2

This project builds on the recently completed FASSTEST project, Creative Interactions: Teaching with OU's Art Collection.

The project will continue to investigate the ways in which students from both Art History and Creative Writing can learn by interrogating an artwork, using, and sharing the particular approaches of each discipline. The OU’s own Art Collection in MK and the nation offices provide an underused opportunity to exploit our own resources in teaching this aspect of the Humanities. 

The results of the original project suggest that students gain in different ways from this shared approach. Creative Writing students found their creative output was stimulated and enhanced by a deeper understanding of an artwork, while Art History students found their writing became more fluent and narrative driven. The number of participants in the original pilot workshop was quite small, so one of the main objectives of this follow-up project is to test these findings with a larger cohort. 

Our approach and methodology will be similar to those used in our pilot workshop. Students from Level 2 Art History and Creative Writing modules will be invited to participate in a series of ‘encounters’ with artworks from the OU’s Art collection, through an appropriate online platform such as Adobe Connect or Microsoft Teams. These encounters will be facilitated by ALs Diana Newall (AH) and Helen Mosby (CW), and students will work both with their own discipline and the ‘other’ discipline. The workshop will conclude with a plenary session, where the students will practice both disciplinary approaches on one three-part artwork. Participants will complete questionnaires both before and after the workshop, where they will be asked both qualitative and quantitative questions. 

Based on this project, the team has published the following: 

Taylor, Clare and Richardson, Heather (2021). The Creative Interactions Project. Writing in Education, 84, pp. 58-62.