Boundary Breaking: Intercultural 'Hands-On' Creative Arts Workshops

This arts-based research inquiry applies innovative approaches to fostering "creativity" in pre-service primary art teachers during their tertiary training. The main research question investigates how to foster "creativity" in pre-service primary art teachers so they can better mentor the children they teach. I argue that pre-service primary art teachers can learn to imagine and generate creative solutions by thinking "outside the box" and by breaking boundaries beyond their normal practice. This paper is presented in the current Australian reductionist context where educational policy is centered on measuring student learning and neglects issues of context and social outcomes (Lingard, 2001; 2012). In contrast to this reductionist attitude, this research investigates how pre-service teacher's attitudes in the visual arts change as they are influenced by diversity in studio-practical intercultural "hands-on" workshops. The study is divided into three sections: (1) The first section discusses the literature review and overviews of the research approach used in this study; (2) The second section investigates the theoretical framework and introduces the studio-practice approach used in the study; and (3) Finally, the paper presents the Chinese art and cultural case study demonstrating how the new "Mo-ku-chi" ("ink-splash and energy") model consisting of four practical phases can be applied in the project. (Contains 3 figures.)