International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Blue, L., Pollitt, J., & Blaise, M. (2023). Conversations with Rain: proposing poetic and non-linear interpretation strategies in the Art Gallery. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 24(si1.2). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea24si1.2

Conversations with Rain aims to disrupt conventional socio-constructivist and cognitive notions of the child familiar in museum settings by rethinking children’s relations with art objects and weather worlds. Our rationale suggests that poetic and non-linear interpretation strategies, combined with artist studio practices that heighten presence and attention, expand the potential of more porous entanglements for children with the world, and potentially transform our climate futures. Disrupting didactic Gallery programming and environmental ‘learning about’ practices, we propose responsive, participatory, multisensory, open-ended, and poetic opportunities that recognise the unfixed, iterative, and tacit knowledges of the child. Building a body of research through a suite of five creative outputs Conversations with Rain contributes to more-than-human pedagogies that investigate how interdisciplinary, embodied, and practice-led approaches deepen engagement, lead to more responsive nature and culture relations, and enliven connection and empathy with children, art objects, and the world.