In the last few decades, artist groups, duos, and collaborative relations between artists and audiences have become increasingly familiar aspects of artistic practice. A common perspective views artistic collaboration simply as a way of working with people in order to produce a work of art, rather than working alone. This qualitative collective case study presents a more complex view of artistic collaboration in practice and pedagogy, a view that is grounded in the work of contemporary artists and art educators.
This research was conducted to develop an understanding of the motivations, issues and processes involved in the collaborative artistic work at three diverse educational sites. The sites were selected because artist-teachers in these locations, who use collaboration in their own work, already use collaboration as part of their pedagogical practice: Room 13, Lochyside Primary School in Fort William, Scotland, with Artists in Residence Claire Gibb and Rob Fairley; The Embodied Knowledge Ensemble, a graduate seminar taught by Michael Mercil and Ann Hamilton at The Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio; and Beyond the Mexican Mural, an undergraduate/graduate level course taught by Judith Baca, offered through the University of California Los Angeles at the César Chávez Digital Mural Laboratory in the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice, California. The sites offered diversity in age and/or ethnicity and represented three different pedagogical models: the artist-teacher and artist-learner collaboration, the artist-teacher as facilitator, and the artist/teacher and apprentices.
Critical and theoretical writings concerned with contemporary artistic collaboration provide the basis for a provisional typology of contemporary collaborative practices that is presented and utilized in this writing. These categories, which include object-centered collaborations, relational collaborations and dialogic collaborations, provide a systematic way of examining the characteristics of collaborative artmaking and provide a basis for analysis of the artmaking at the study sites.
Constructivism and social learning theories similarly inform the analysis of pedagogical practices utilized at the research sites. Conceptions of the social construction of knowledge and the social nature of creative activities provide a broad background for social learning theories and practices, such as cooperative learning, situated cognition, and communities of practice that contribute to an understanding of the pedagogical practices observed.
Although the purpose of this investigation was not to provide a rationale for teaching collaborative artmaking, certain educational benefits were discovered in the areas of democratic social skills, critical and creative thinking skills, and personal and artistic growth. Problems involved in teaching a collaborative approach to artmaking are also presented, along with implications for classroom practice. The findings of this collective case study suggest that continued in-depth research would be beneficial to art educators and to the field of art education.