Teaching art and design: Communicating creative practice through embodied and tacit knowledge

Abstract

How do artists and designers teaching in universities communicate creative practice as they teach art/design? There is much discussion about the ‘mystery’ of creativity, but little understanding of how teaching occurs in creative contexts. Understanding this topic better will develop greater knowledge within the academy of how art and design is communicated by the creative practitioners who teach it, and could benefit other academic disciplines. In this article, I draw on data from a recent Australian study with artist/designer-academics. It provides rich qualitative data to explore in detail how artists and designers teaching in universities communicate creative practice as they teach art/design. Tacit and embodied knowledge theories are used to provide frameworks for explaining this phenomenon. I argue that artist/designer-academics embody their creative practices and communicate these through teaching in both tacit and explicit forms, and that they do this through modelling knowledge, skills and practice.