A performative approach to wool felting : Rhizomatic relations in visual arts making and art education

Abstract

As the first combined dissertation in Fine Arts with the specialisation Arts in context submitted to the University of Agder, comprising artistic and scientific works, this research evolves between artistic and written acts. It is a performative exploration of a performative approach to the ancestral technique of wool felting. The dissertation includes six explorations: three public exhibitions, three articles, and a 7th element consisting of a series of ongoing ‘minor’ moments related to the topic of the thesis that I carry out in my everyday practices as an artist, teacher and researcher. Alongside with that, I provide a mantle that is a metatext of the dissertation. In dialogue with the works of Deleuze and Guattari (1980) and Barad (2007), I use concepts that denote a theoretical and philosophical position inspired by an ontology of immanence and agential realism. The pedagogical stance of this research acknowledges Atkinson’s (2015) ideas on the adventure of pedagogy that brings forward the notion of the ‘not-known’. The rhizomatic network connecting the seven explorations is transmitted through four interconnected parts that I call ‘strata’, which is in accordance with my research design. A diffractive reading of the explorations suggests a performative pedagogy that actualises questions related to artistic, pedagogical, and research practices. It underlines the emerging knowledge creation in situ as not-isolated and not pre-existing entities and/or thoughts. Moving between the de-stabilisation–re-stabilisation, de-forming–reforming, and de-territorialisation–re-territorialisation of my practices brings a fruitful in-coherence. My doubts, interrogations, and experimentations might affect the reader, and provoke new thoughts. The mapping of my explorations can create resonance in readers, also in their own contexts – being similar or different. Maybe this could inspire more persons to explore further how one could teach, not only how one should teach. This dissertation is dedicated to those that doubt and ask questions, but also to those that work with certainty, in artistic, pedagogical, and/or research contexts.