Inspire2020: A celebration of children's work in response to Cupid and Psyche
- Submitting institution
-
University of Cambridge
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 9018
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- The Fitzwilliam Museum
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- December
- Year of first exhibition
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- 23 - Education
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Inspire2020 is lead output in this multi-component item, which includes a journal article alongside contextual information enabling the reviewer to visualise the exhibition. Noble curated Inspire (December 2019-March 2020), which featured children’s artwork created in response to a Renaissance panel painting of Cupid and Psyche. Inspire was an outcome of an action-research project exploring how museum-led research and training can support the teaching of art and design in primary schools. The component article presents Noble’s research on visual literacy. By collecting new empirical data on art teaching and learning she expanded the field of research and practice in art and design education. Noble employed Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory to evidence how object-based learning pedagogies can encourage participatory, open-ended and playful approaches to teaching art and design.
Working as practitioner researcher within a university museum, Noble drew on Lave and Wenger’s work to create a ‘community of practice’ bringing together artists, teachers, museum professionals and university researchers to study the painting. The project took a constructivist approach to knowledge creation as participants worked alongside one another to develop, share and co-create knowledge. Following a museum-based training session, teachers used digital reproductions of the painting to develop students’ visual literacy, providing opportunities for careful looking, deep thinking, group discussion and experimentation with materials and techniques. Teachers’ and students’ questions about the painting led to specially commissioned research by museum conservators, and research scientists, displayed alongside the painting and children’s artwork. The show demonstrated how expert training about artefacts, materials and processes informed by original research on museum objects and the development of visual literacy can transform teaching practice, extend pupil outcomes and enhance public understanding of works of art. It established the potential of collaborative enquiry between museums and community groups to extend the premises, parameters and process of museum research.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -