Speculative steps with story shoes: Object itineraries as sensual a-r-tography

Abstract

Informed by understandings of affect theory, the pedagogic potential of object itineraries, or simply, the journey of things, is proposed in this case as a form of sensual a-r-tography. A pair of sporty shoes as mundane objects are at the heart of this deliberation, and the mechanism through which to consider the scope of conversations underway about more-than-human perspectives and how objects can be activated as sites of educational inquiry. The embodiment of each step in this walk is an opening to interrogate how the potential materiality of artefacts ‘enflesh’ object-body-space as artist-researcher-teacher. Mapping geographies of self-in-relation, and guided by the betweenness in landscape encounters as relational and contingent, this speculative account with theoretical perspectives is rendered through the entanglements offered by story shoes.

KEYWORDS:

• Object itineraries
• sensual a-r-tography
• affect

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a Partnership Development Grant (Rita L. Irwin, The University of British Columbia, PI) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Anita Sinner

Anita Sinner is an Associate Professor of Art Education at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research interests include artwork scholarship, international art education, historical perspectives and community teacher education. She works extensively with stories as pedagogic pivots, with emphasis on creative geographies in education.