Making Gothic : A/r/tographic attempts to integrate theory and practice

Teaching theoretical subjects within the creative curriculum is a challenge for educators, with many students reluctant to engage with text-based disciplines which they see having little or no relevance to their studio practice. For the last three year, the author has carried out a/r/tographic research with fine art students in the context of a Gothic seminar series in order to straddle this divide between theory and practice, and to re-invigorate theory by placing it in a practical context. This proposed research will build especially on work by Feinstein (2005) and Sederholm (2005) who have explored alternative and participative methods of teaching Gothic literature. However, there has been no significant work carried out in relation to the use of participative and practice-based pedagogies in teaching the Gothic within the fine art curriculum; it is this gap that this research hopes to address, both in terms of investigating how students learn through participative work and to outline a possible model of practice in teaching the Gothic in the fine arts curriculum. The central hypothesis of this proposal is therefore a research and practice-based enquiry into the use of practice-based pedagogies in teaching the Gothic in the fine art curriculum. This is illustrated using collaborative work carried out by art collective 'Gothicise' and the use of online curated exhibitions of Gothic art work. [Author abstract]