Object-based learning, art and design collections and the art school: mobilising material culture to support art and design teaching practice in tertiary education

Research question: How can object-based learning activities using archives and collections in art and design pedagogic contexts enhance learning and well-being?

The discipline of object-based learning as suggested by Paris (2002) is rooted in museums and has been enthusiastically embraced by academics exploring the potential of objects to support the pedagogic ambitions of higher education. Early proponents of using collections to support teaching practice at tertiary level (Chatterjee, 2007; Duhs, 2010, Chatterjee, Duhs and Hannan, 2013) considered object-based learning’s relevance to a range of subjects, including social history, archaeology, zoology and medicine, and identified its potential for addressing troublesome knowledge (Perkins, 1999) and contributing to the development of key skills such as research and analysis. However, art and design were notably under-researched in this initial definition of the field.

As a museum practitioner, lecturer and research academic based in a specialised art and design university, I have addressed that knowledge gap through a decade of practice-based research. My work borrows from a number of disciplines, including museology, archival practice, cultural studies, visual and material culture, pedagogy and psychology. In this critical appraisal I demonstrate my contribution to the field and use the scope of my work to suggest an expanded notion of object-based learning, where objects are more than a way to inculcate a set of instrumental (albeit useful) skills.

In the art and design world, objects have agency – the capacity to influence, affect or push back. My focus on the complex, dynamic meaning-making processes which ensue from object engagements in the context of the art school has allowed objects to be repurposed as generators of creative practice and nodes for self-reflection. Across the six publications addressed in this thesis, I have used a variety of research methodologies to analyse data from thousands of participants to assess the impact of a variety of object-based learning interventions. Based on this research, I will argue that objects are powerful metaphors with the potential to challenge biases, inspire new ways of seeing and thinking and support curriculum-based learning in art and design.