In the Big Black Pot. Encounters with Art in School-Classes for Children with Special Needs.

This presentation is about encounters with art as drama/theater-aesthetic-processes involving children (around 10-12 years old), pedagogues, and artists. The children are diagnosed with ADHD and autism and attend special classes within the Danish school system. The research project is still in progress (runs from November 2021 to December 2022) and is framed as accompanying research (Christensen et al., 2016). It links to a larger Danish project Grib Engagementet (Grab the Engagement) and is in close collaboration with Børnekulturhuset i Aarhus (The House of Children’s Culture in Aarhus, Denmark). The research aims at creating knowledge about the children’s engagement and well becoming in encounters with art as drama/theater-aesthetic processes and the values of professional, interprofessional, and aesthetic practices involving children, pedagogues and artists.
The theoretical framework enhances encounters with art as aesthetic and playful processes, which are subtle and negotiating practices involving sensitive attentions towards others and surroundings (Blomgren, 2019). The practices and interactions are furthermore approached as sympoiesis – to create interactions and imaginative worlds through narratives and body (Hovik, 2019). Finally, I approach children’s well becoming as a relational- and situated matter developed in and through social practices (Seland et al, 2015).
The research takes place within a qualitative paradigm, creating qualitative empirical material. The methods used are fieldwork and participation in reflective workshops with the professionals, and creation of fieldnotes and interviews. Maybe the fieldwork will involve video recordings for use in the reflective workshops, but it requires further informal consent from the children and the professionals. I have some ethical considerations about this – maybe the children will feel too exposed?
Due to the research in progress, the analysis and findings are still in the making. To be thrown in the big black pot is a metaphor used by one of the pedagogues, who values the drama/theater-aesthetic processes as a way to get the children to be in unpredictable situations and learn to navigate from internal controls (instead of external and adult created controls). Is this also the case for the pedagogues and artists?