Resourceful Objects

Torunn Kjolberg presented a paper based on her current PhD research at the 4th international CLTAD conference in New York Enhancing Curricula: Using research and enquiry to inform student learning in the disciplines. The conference aimed to address how the disciplines within ‘art and design’ are shaped, enhanced and redefined through pedagogic research and enquiry. It further asked what are the conceptual changes that impact and will continue to influence teaching and learning in art and design higher education.

Papers addressed issues such as the shifting ontological underpinnings of art education; ‘the studio’ as a conceptual and physical space for learning, theories of drawing, writing and making that are impacting on art and design education. There was a strong emphasis on multi-disciplinarity both as research focus and with regards to the shaping of curricula, and redrawing of boundaries between subjects.

Torunn’s paper Resourceful Objects: The V&A as a learning resource for ‘visual research’ in textile design education, explored the use of the Victoria and Albert Museum as a resource for research for Level 1 textile design students. This case study, based on extensive interviews, observational data and images of student work, sought to explicate what makes objects ‘resourceful’ to students in a research setting.
Though a work-in-progress, the paper highlighted some of the complexities in the interactions between the learner, object and the museum, exploring the intricate networks that are formed between these.

Analysis of data collected to date suggests that what makes objects ‘resourceful’ for design students, involves a complex interaction of the student’s preconceptions of the museum and approaches to learning. These ‘metaphysical’ conditions operate in interplay with issues surrounding the particular aesthetic, locality or construction of the object on display, including its materiality, lighting, grouping, background information, physical positioning and size. The fact that the museum object negates a haptic experience sets further restrictions. The objects’ dimensionality is frequently ‘flattened’ by the display case, limiting the angles of which the object can be examined.

The ways in which the student should best approach, record and develop this form of research is not a natural ‘given’. Neither the objects themselves nor the display will automatically provide these instructions. Effective use of this form of research depends on the learning of certain ways of looking and recording and approaches to analysing and developing this ‘data’. Some ways of capturing data are more effective than others, depending on what qualities the student seeks to capture. As such the method of recording data (pencil-sketch, photography, written notes, pastel drawing, etc), must be appropriate to the particular quality (sheen, texture, shape, detail, lay-out, history, use, etc) of the object that the student wishes to depict. This particular process was detailed in illustrated case-studies of Level 1 textile design students’ development of initial research through to design, using objects in the V&A as points of departure. This research forms a part of a longitudinal ethnographic study of a group
of fashion and textile design students at the University of Brighton, combining interview and observational data with photographic evidence of the students’ work.

Torunn will also present a paper based on her MA research into clothing, memory and the museum at the V&A Sackler Centre inaugural conference Fear of the Unknown’: Can gallery interpretation help visitors learn about art and material culture?