A/R/Tography

For the longest time, I have been an a/r/tographer, an Artist, Researcher, Teacher/Therapist. A/r/tography, a research methodolody developed in Canada by Dr. Rita Irwin who coined the term. My intuitive digital collages are created with a/r/tography in mind. I am hoping to write an art based research paper focusing on the creation of these collages and on a/r/tography.

So what is a/r/tography?

Rita Irwin states:

“a/r/tography is a living practice of art, research and teaching (A/R/T): a living metissage; a life writing, life creating experience.

Through attention to memory, identity, reflection, meditation, story telling, interpretation and representation, artists/researchers/teachers (for me therapist) share their living practice,  searching for new ways to understand their practices as artists, researchers and teachers.

They are a/r/tographers representing their questions, practices, emergent understanding, and creative analytic texts.

They are living their work, representing their understandings, and performing their pedagogical positions as they integrate knowing, doing and making through aesthetic experiences that convey meaning rather than facts.

Their work is both science and art but it is closer to art and as such, they seek to enhance meaning rather than certainty”

( see Ellis & Bochner, 2000 p. 751) “