Making Time and Space for Art: An Examination of an Artist-in-Residence Within a Postsecondary Art Education Program

This article examines the process and impact of an artist-in-residence


Introduction
his article examines the artistic research conducted and the impact on students of an artistin-residence program in Art Education within the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria. The intention of this research was to examine the process of artistic research as it relates to pedagogy as well as the impact of artistic research within a space of learning (the Faculty of Education). We include an Art Education Professor, a doctoral student/Fine Arts Professor and an Artist-in-Residence. In this article, we discuss our approach to working with the artist-in-residence, address the qualitative and artistic research methods used, and the findings of the research. The findings are presented through photographic documentation, observations of the artistic process, reflection by the artistin-residence, and interviews with faculty and students. The artist-in-residence was a collaborative project between the researchers, the artist, the faculty, and students who visited the gallery. For this reason, this article brings together these diverse voices to highlight the collaborative artistic and pedagogical potentials of an artist-in-residence.
After an open call to artists, contemporary Upper Tanana visual artist Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé, proud member of the White River First Nation of Beaver Creek, Yukon, and Alaska was alongside faculty and students on a body of work, and extend student learning by providing opportunities to observe an artistic practice and engage with a professional artist. While I believe it is commonly accepted within arts communities that artists-in-residence are positive experiences for both the artist and the community, little research has examined the impact of these residencies.
In the second approach, the artist draws from their expertise and experience as an artist to teach or guide students toward specific learning objectives. In this case, the outcome is focused on the learning of the students. Far more research has addressed this approach, particularly in K-12 contexts (e.g., Adams, 2005;Ash, 2016;Hunter-Doniger, 2015;Hunter-Doniger & Berlinsky, 2017;Lachapelle, 2016;LeBlanc & Irwin, 2019;Winderlich, 2016;Woywod & Deal, 2016). Stephanie Springgay leads a SSHRC funded project entitled Pedagogical Impulse that examines the impact of social practice artists-in-residences within Toronto-based schools and demonstrates how artists-in-residence offer a creative collaboration between artists, researchers, teachers and students (Miles & Springgay, 2019;Rotas & Springgay, 2014;Springgay & Truman, 2016). Within British Columbia, Art Starts in Schools (https://artstarts.com) is an example of an organization that facilitates artists working within public schools through artists-in-residence. In this case, the artist works with the classroom teacher to develop a residency that addresses outcomes in the British Columbia Curriculum, often focused on arts integration.
Less research has focused on artists-in-residence in universities, but those that have employed the second approach, wherein the artist takes on the role of teacher and the focus is on the learning outcomes of students. For example, Ungemah and Stokas (2017) explored how artistsin-residence leading mandatory post-secondary arts courses in education enhanced student learning. LeBlanc & Irwin (2019) studied how artists-in-residence across arts education (i.e. music, drama, visual and language arts) created a space for exploring contemporary national identity. The McGill Art Hive (https://www.mcgill.ca/arthive/) initiative, demonstrates how an art educational studio space may promote collaborations between faculty and students in a Faculty of Education (Bonneau, 2019).
The intention of this residency was to draw from the approaches above to develop the residency within the Wilfrid Johns gallery. The intention was to have the artist's practice within the space be a prompt for pedagogical action. The residency, therefore, draws from the artist's research methodology to provide a pedagogical experience for the students, faculty, and community. The artist would develop their own art practice within the gallery, while working with faculty, students and researchers to provide learning opportunities. The goal was to examine how the artist-in-residence might deepen, extend or compliment students' academic experience, without having pre-prescribed learning outcomes for students. We believe this emergent process is essential to the project as it recognizes the particular, situated and emergent quality of art making and learning. Further it allows for each individual involved to have their own unique learning experience rather than having their learning outcomes pre-decided. It is our contention that within a university system heavily weighted on prescribed and measurable objectives that this residency may provide learning experiences beyond those already received.

Theoretical Orientation
We draw from the theoretical lens of the work of Barbara Bolt (2004;2013; and Estelle Barrett (2007;2013) who examine artistic approaches to research as performative. Bolt (2016) argues that a performative paradigm recognizes that artistic research is ontologically performative in its capacity to provoke and generate experiences. A performative lens of artistic practice emphasizes engagement with artistic research as an embodied, affective, sensory, Canadian Review of Art Education, 48(1) December 2021 76 experiential, and emergent learning process. A performative view of art recognizes that making art or viewing art is a generative process that has particular effects on each person within a particular time and place. This performative way of learning does not view art-making as simply the creation of a pre-determined final product, but instead as an ongoing prompt to learning, thinking, and meaning-making. It is through this lens that we view the residency as similarly multiple and indeterminant (Barrett, 2013) through its capacity to prompt learning, thinking and making through interaction with the art and artist.
Through the lens of performativity, we examine an artist-in-residence for its potential as an emergent event (Richardson & Walker (2011). Richardson and Walker (2011) address emergence and art-making as a process of becoming, wherein art, ideas, understandings and relationships emerge throughout the process. Through setting the conditions for pedagogical encounters, we asked what learning opportunities might emerge for students, faculty and the artistin-residence. Drawing from a performative lens of artistic processes, the residency proposes that an artist-in-residence is similarly a process-event that occurs in a particular time and space through ongoing dialogue with participants.
The research was set at a university that is committed to working with Indigenous peoples as they work toward decolonization and indigenization. Many researchers have examined ways of weaving Indigenous knowledges and worldviews into postsecondary institutions (Bartlett, Marshall & Marshall, 2012;Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2009;Pidgeon, 2014;Ragoonaden, 2017) while also confronting the Eurocentric and colonial structures within a university (Battiste et al., 2002) and addressing approaches to decolonization in the university (Mitchell, Thomas & Smith, 2018). Gaudry and Lorenz (2018) highlight three approaches to Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation and decolonization and conclude that most postsecondary institutions in Canada focus predominantly on Indigenous inclusion. Within the University of Victoria Faculty of Education, Tanaka et al. (2007) examined how a course based on Indigenous pedagogy for pre-service teachers shaped their views of teaching and learning. Indigenous pedagogies became embedded within our research project because of the artist selected. Further, Indigenous Education Faculty, interviewed for this research, brought their experience and insights into the analysis of the impact of the project.

Methodology
The research combined both research-creation and qualitative research methods to examine both the process and impact of the residency. The research-creation methods were performed by the artist herself within the gallery as she made art within the gallery throughout the month while engaging with visitors in art-making and dialogue. We employed research-creation drawing from the works of Bolt & Barrett (2007, 2013, Loveless (2019) and Springgay & Truman (2016). Through these approaches, we focus on processes and invite students and faculty to become witnesses and participants to the process. While the research-creation methods created the conditions and content for how the research unfolded, the processes of the research-creation and the impact on students were examined through qualitative methods. The impact on students was examined through analysis of student participation in artistic events, integration of the gallery within course content and student responses. Follow up interviews with the artist, students, and faculty were performed to examine the learning experiences for the artist, faculty and students and to examine experiences and observations from diverse perspectives. An active interview format (Gubrium & Holstein, 2003) was used to prompt open-ended conversation and self-reflection about artistic practices (Hannula et al., 2014). We also integrated photo-documentation strategies Canadian Review of Art Education, 48(1) December 2021 77 and image-based research methodologies (Pink, 2012;Rose, 2010) into the processes of data collection. Through the analysis of the interviews, several themes emerged about the ways time and space are structured within education, formal and informal ways of learning, and the role of conversation in education.

Project Development
An open call was put out to artists and approximately 30 submissions were received. The artist selected was Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé, a contemporary Indigenous artist from the White River First Nation of Beaver Creek, Yukon. Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé inhabited the gallery space for one month, transforming the space into an active studio space where students, faculty and the local community were invited to bead with Teresa as they discussed Indigenous pedagogies. Teresa created a welcoming space that mimicked a domestic space to model the way she learned beading from her grandmother at the kitchen table. Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé was selected as the artist because of her proposal to use the residency to not only create beadwork, but to also address her own research-creation questions related to Indigenous pedagogies through ongoing creative dialogue with the students and faculty.
In her submission, Teresa stated that throughout the residency, she would explore the following questions: 1. Is level of education [post-secondary art training] segregating artists into silos: those with a degree in art and those that are self-taught?; 2. Is Indigenous pedagogy (in regards to art) seen as worthy within or outside of academia? Are Indigenous and western pedagogy cohesive?; 3. Do educated and self-taught artists think about art and their processes differently? (ie. Can they communicate with one another?). Regarding her intentions in her submission proposal, Teresa stated: I will mimic a kitchen table with beadwork supplies and projects in all stages of completion to be actively worked on. Throughout the month, I will begin to add these artworks to the wall space, in an attempt to answer some of the questions I'm asking. Using my Grandma's watch and learn method, I will teach students and faculty how to bead. Beading is often associated with conversation and the ultimate way I'd like to communicate with the department, igniting creativity and meaningful thought as we take this journey together. The artist was selected because of her artistic inquiry approach. Rather than coming into the residency with fixed objectives, the artist provided prompts for inquiry that would be developed throughout the residency within the space and with the department. Thus, the residency aligned with the performative approach to research, wherein conditions were created to see what would emerge through making and dialogue.  Notes: Photograph by Ingrid Percy.

Discussion: The Emergent Installation
Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé began the residency by setting up the gallery as a studio, exhibition space, kitchen, and pedagogical space. On one wall, she displayed family photographs of her grandparents. The installation simultaneously mimicked an exhibition while also alluding to family photographs hung in a home. Around the room hung bandanas which referenced potlaches. In the back of the gallery, Teresa set up a kitchen table with a table cloth, a tin of beads and some felt. The wall behind her had a string with clothes pins where she planned to hang works created by herself and visitors throughout the month. The back wall gradually became filled with felts with beadwork by faculty and students. Teresa engaged with small groups of visitors through teaching them the beading process, drawing from her watch-and-learn technique.
Along the other wall, Teresa installed a large paper displaying the research questions she had proposed that address Indigenous pedagogies and how artists learn (self-taught verses academically trained). Throughout the month, comments emerged on the wall in response to the questions. Some were added while visiting Teresa, while others were transcribed by Teresa in response to conversations with visitors. Others emerged to Teresa's surprise during times when she was not in the space. Many comments addressed ways that Indigenous pedagogies were at odds with the colonial structure of the university.
The artist engaged with the faculty and students in multiple ways. She invited full classes of students to come to the gallery. In these cases, the teaching occurred through artist-talk presentations and faculty/artist led discussions. She worked with smaller classes who engaged in dialogue while learning to bead. And she had intimate one-on-one conversations with faculty, students and community members who visited the space outside of class time for longer periods 80 of time. The findings of this project, drawn from observation and follow-up interviews with faculty, students and community members revealed that the strength of an artist-in-residence within a Faculty of Education is not simply through re-enforcing prescribed learning outcomes, but rather in provoking discussions on ways of learning that may challenge or disrupt students' learning experience and/or daily routine. Thus, while some benefit was demonstrated in working with large classes that aligned with curricular content, larger impacts were felt from smaller groups or individual students who spent significant time with the artist. The artist-driven research questions confronted faculty and students to reconsider their understandings of pedagogy and learning. This finding became clear through conversations with students and faculty who discussed the importance of unstructured time within learning. Figures 4-11 show the installation and evolution of the exhibition throughout the month.

Findings
The following themes emerged through participant observation and interviews that will be discussed in the findings: structured/unstructured time; formal and informal ways of learning; conversation; and spaces of learning. While in many cases the residency enriched and extended course outcomes, more importantly, through addressing these themes, the residency revealed what is not taught within structured coursework. Further, it revealed the unexpected conversations and encounters that may emerge through providing a space outside of the classroom for art making. Students and faculty addressed the challenges of finding time for art making and dialogue, while also expressing their desire for unstructured time for these moments. The realizations prompted some education students to consider how they may foster unstructured spaces of learning in their classrooms. Lastly, the artist prompted conversation about Indigenous pedagogies within academia. These themes will be addressed through an examination of the interviews with participants.
To acknowledge these different lenses and experiences of participants, the findings are presented to bring in the diverse voices of those involved. We begin by presenting how the residency emerged throughout the month, followed by a reflection by the artist (Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé). Next, we discuss three types of engagement with faculty and students (full class presentations/workshops, classroom inquiry and out-of-class visits) through interviews with

Class Workshops: Structured visits
Findings suggested that within structured class visits, course content was exemplified through the stories told by the artist. Over the course of the month, Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé worked closely with several groups of students and faculty. Pre-service teachers in both elementary and secondary art education courses worked with Teresa to understand inquiry-based approaches to pedagogy and Indigenous ways of learning. Through this work they not only learned beadwork but examined and questioned how they teach and learn as they developed their own teaching approaches. Students taking Indigenous Education courses visited the gallery to engage with Teresa about how artistic pedagogies may enrich their understandings about Indigenous histories and education. Students in Math Education courses came to understand how artistic methods may allow for multi-modal ways of learning. A health recreation student who visited the gallery during one of her Art Education class claimed that the visit re-affirmed her understandings about multiple ways of learning, prompting her to consider how she learns in informal settings.
Art Educator Sheila Karrow scheduled class time to work with Teresa. She sent her students in groups of 10 to learn to bead with Teresa. Having been an artist-in-residence in classrooms, she recognized that any opportunity for students to learn from an artists' practice enriches student learning. That said, the large classes and lack of time for in depth engagement was a barrier for more in depth learning. Regarding this, she said: "I wish they had more class time

s that idealized vision of how we'd like it to play out and their realistic schedule with a course load that was maximized. The reality of that level involvement in beading didn't play out as we hoped but they still learned from it."
As the professor of an Indigenous Education course for elementary education undergraduate students, Carmen Rodriguez de France brought two classes to the space. When asked why she brought her students to the gallery, she said: I think, as an educator, it is unfortunate that in many schools, art programs are an add on. Especially in elementary schools. I feel like art is a doorway we should all have access to even if we are not professional artists. We should offer these doorways to learners as a way of expressing themselves and express their learning, whatever that is… math, science, biology, or whatever. It is too bad that schools see art as a subject matter rather than integral to their learning. Carmen explained how Teresa brought an experienced example that reinforced many ideas discussed in class that allowed for a deeper connection for students. Through personal stories, students understood her world view: The fact that Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé is from the Yukon; she has a particular world view and a particular way of being because of how she's connected to art and how she grew up and how she describes the process of learning to bead. And how when she came to university, she picked it up again, and she understood herself differently when she reconnected with art than she did when she was first exposed to art. Life experience gives us that space. So, for me, the hiatus that she described in her learning and her connection to how she picked it up again when she was in an urban space outside of her community, illustrates how she was looking for some kind of reconnection or finding herself in this particular space. She talks about walking in two worlds. With one of my groups that visited with her, I had just explored the topic of urban Aboriginal people and we came to the space and Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé offered all this information. She described and embodied many of these challenges that Indigenous families might have faced when moved outside of their own space. Carmen spoke hopefully about how these small encounters may plant a seed for future understandings that take time to be understood.

Artistic Inquiry in a Secondary Art education class: Unstructured time
Through conversations with the professor (Regan Rasmussen) and observation of students, it was found that students preferred working with Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé in an unstructured way, where they could learn to bead and discuss ideas without the pressure of completing tasks or assignments. Prior to the residency, Secondary Art Education course instructor, Regan Rasmussen met with Teresa to discuss possibilities. Regan's teaching approach utilized inquiry with connections to the Core Competencies and Big Ideas from the BC arts curriculum. She appreciated the significance of having students work directly with an Indigenous artist to deepen their understandings of the First People's Principles of Learning, a key component of the curriculum. Adopting an inquiry-based approach to working with Teresa allowed for new understandings to unfold between the students and artist. Regan Rasmussen describes her intentions: Together 89 reflections documented thoughts, connections, and new questions arising from time spent in the gallery. Students were inspired by Teresa's watch-and-learn approach that didn't require templates or written instructions.
Regan indicated that involvement in the residency provoked students to also consider aspects of formative and summative assessment in learning. She said: "They came to question what should or should not be measured and assessed in learning. They came to appreciate that certain things cannot be marked and can't be assessed." In particular, Regan commented on how providing space and time during a tightly scheduled program had a big impact on students. The theme of time came up in many discussions related to the BC curriculum Big Idea "Learning requires time, patience and perseverance." Schedules within schools often can't allow enough time or space for reflection. One student in her final inquiry project asked, "How can we find time for reflection and mindful breaks to deepen learning?"

Figure 14
Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé beading with students in Wilfrid Johns Gallery.
Notes: Photograph by Regan Rasmussen.

Figure 15
Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé beading with students in the Wilfrid Johns Gallery.
Notes: Photograph by Regan Rasmussen.

Individual and small-group visits: Informal learning through conversation
Through observations, discussions with the artist and follow up interviews, it was found that the space and time provided by the residency for one-on-on art-making or small groups yielded the deepest impact and revealed the potentials of an artist residency moving forward. In these cases, the learning was not simply in extending, reinforcing, exemplifying or enhancing course outcomes, but rather provided a pedagogical experience beyond their course content. These outcomes demonstrated the need to provide spaces for dialogue through making that bring together people from multiple backgrounds. Over the course of the month, students from across campus and in the community came to talk and bead with Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé. Art history students expressed that talking with Teresa not only deepened the content in their Indigenous Art History course, but allowed for an insightful conversation with a peer about her experiences beyond graduation. A woman who came to campus daily to care for her grandchild while her daughter took courses in the department, came across the residency and spent hours one day beading and talking with Teresa, thus revealing potentials for cross-generational encounters with visitors on campus. In addition to students from across the university visiting the gallery, Teresa engaged with local curators, community members and artists. She spent an afternoon beading with a local high school teacher and a group of secondary school students.
These unplanned connections were exemplified through one encounter between a faculty member, an undergraduate student and Teresa. We address this encounter through excerpts from an interview with Shauneen Pete, the Indigenous Resurgence Coordinator in the faculty and an  (and perhaps undesirable) to document every conversation that occurred between Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé and her visitors but in the end, I do hope that the knowledge that was communicated each way has, and does, lead to policies and practices that are more empathic and responsive to non-western ways of knowledge. Ultimately, I think we all have a lot to learn from each other and this was one step in that process of opening up discourse to broader perspectives. This will make us all stronger.

Figure 17
Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé beading with students in Wilfrid Johns Gallery.
Notes: Photograph by Ben Pickering.

Creating Space for Spending Time
This residency created space, created a mood and a feeling perhaps where time stands still a bit. (Shauneen Pete) The themes of space and time were addressed by art educators, Indigenous educators and students during and following the residency. Through the residency, Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé sought to create a welcoming space for faculty and students to spend their time. As discussed through the interviews, the creation of the space prompted the artist and visitors to consider how they structure time within their own lives and those of their students. Time is framed within many of these conversations as something we are lacking, something we are seeking out or something that is structured. While some faculty and students regretted not having enough time to finish their beadwork with Teresa, other students discussed finding time to reflect or to be mindful through making within a highly structured program. Through this research, we contend that art making is a relational act, and that through creating spaces for art making, we are setting the stage for time and space to function differently through creating spaces for new relationships to emerge through making and conversation. These are the lenses through which we developed and engaged with this residency.
Through working with Teresa, students, art educators and Indigenous Educators throughout the month, we have come to more deeply understand how Indigenous pedagogies may similarly address ways that time and space are structured within an educational space. Further, we came to embrace ways that through occupying a space within an academic setting, an artist-inresidence may confront colonial ways of learning, and open up possibilities for artistic ways of knowing that embrace relationships and creative encounters. In an article entitled, Being 'Lazy' and Slowing down: Toward Decolonizing Time, our body and Pedagogy, Shahjahan (2015) argues for "reformulating the notion of 'time' and temporalities of academic life" (p. 488). Further, he argues that "in order to reconnect our minds to our bodies and center embodied pedagogy in the classroom, we should disrupt Eurocentric notions of time that colonize our academic lives" (p. 488). Through the residency, while providing time and space for beading and conversation, Teresa simultaneously provoked visitors to consider the pedagogies that are reinforced within the structure of the university. Perhaps the most explicit example of this provocation was through a student response on the comment wall (by an unidentified visitor) that said: "Indigenous and Western pedagogy are not cohesive. However, for many reasons, our society needs to adapt and incorporate ways of viewing the world and living, but this will take deconstructing years of learned behaviour and worldview, which begins with education." The residency highlighted the challenges and barriers to such an endeavor, as students and faculty alike had difficulty finding time in their busy schedules to spend enough time in the gallery. On the other hand, the research revealed moments of hope and possibility for meaningful exchanges through conversation and artmaking, through creating time and space for art.
Notes: Photograph by Ingrid Percy.
Notes: Photograph by Ingrid Percy.
Notes: Photograph by Ingrid Percy.

Conclusion
Through examining the artist-in-residence program from multiple lenses, viewpoints and approaches, it is clear that the strength of the project arose out of its emergent structure. Rather than being developed as a pre-set plan to address prescribed learning outcomes for students, the residency highlighted the importance that it is generated by both the artistic and pedagogical concerns of the artist, even if they confront faculty and students to re-examine how they are learning and what they are learning. In this case, the inquiry-driven approach developed by Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé, through her lens as an Indigenous artist, challenged visitors to consider the structure of learning itself. Through inhabiting this space, she engaged in conversations with faculty and students about spaces of learning, particularly the value of unstructured time, informal learning and the conversations that emerge through providing space and time for this. This finding was supported by faculty, students and the artist who claimed that the richest learning experience was during informal moments when they spent time in small groups making and conversing with Teresa. Thus, through this residency, we propose that the value of an artist-in-residence is not through pre-planned learning outcomes that support a defined curriculum, but rather through the capacity of an artist-in-residence to prompt students and faculty to consider ways of learning that fall outside of how they understand curriculum. In this case pre-service teachers questioned their assumptions, expanded their understandings of what constitutes learning and re-considered how they will structure time and place to support learning. Because each artist enters a space with their own research-creation methodology, these results are specific to this residency. Therefore, the