Laura Brearley

Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services, RMIT University, Victoria, Australia

An Invitation to Engage with Creative Forms of Data Representation

Abstract

The problematisation of representation in research is central to an academic debate which has emerged from ethnographic and phenomenological perspectives, as well as from the field of educational research. Challenging the voice of the omniscient academic observer disturbs the very basis of epistemological and methodological assumptions about research. Creative forms of representation can transform the sensuous and the intellectual into one aesthetic continuum. In this presentation, I will describe my recent doctoral research, in which I have creatively represented data through poetry, songs, mandalas and multi-media tracks in order to:

· Reflect the original richness and complexity of the data

· Invite new levels of engagement that are both cognitive and emotional, and

· Provide multiple prisms through which to explore experience.

The presentation will invite engagement at a range of levels. It will theorise representational issues in research and will also include examples of creative forms of representation.

Bionote

Laura Brearley has worked in the field of adult education for 23 years in the Adult Community Education sector, the Vocational Education and Training sector, in private enterprise and in Higher Education. She is currently a lecturer at RMIT University. In her PhD, she has explored the creative voice in an academic context.

Presentation Type
60 min. Workshop

Presentation Equipment and Other Requests
a space large enough to put a mandala of colourful fabric about 2 metres wide on the floor.
A CD player would also be great

Speaking Date/Time Restrictions

Country
Australia