Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper outlines my current study, which focuses on an investigation of geometry and geometric form through two and three-dimensional artworks as a way of exploring and contributing to interdisciplinary knowledge. It is undertaken in a visual arts-practice context. I draw on my personal interdisciplinary experience of the visual arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education research. As the artist/researcher I am both research instrument and data source. Geometry is selected for its capacity to speak to both STEM and art practitioners. The interdisciplinary experience involves learning the value systems, etiquette and customs of other discipline cultures. It involves not knowing and not being “the expert” (Bresler, 2016) and includes challenging our positionality, to inform greater understanding. The focus of the study will be a curated exhibition that renders my geometric and visual ways of knowing with my lived experience as researcher an applies the methodologies of a/r/tography and autoethnography. Bresler’s five themes of interdisciplinarity (2016): the potential, promises and peril of travel; positionality; enabling awareness of the larger picture; border-crossing; and being comfortable with unknowing are being explored through specific artworks. The aim is to provide an educative context where visual and theoretical approaches are considered for their capacity to contribute to knowledge, informing how we think and work in, between and across disciplines.