Artistic Research, Healing, and Transformation: Shared Stories of Resilience

Abstract

Written in narrative format and guided by concepts and methods borrowed from intuitive inquiry, a transpersonal and holistic approach to scholarship, the article offers insights into the research process of art teachers who were completing their graduate studies in art education during the pandemic year of 2020–2021. By engaging in an arts-based inquiry that brought them to explore aspects of their inner life, also shedding light on our shared cultural and social conditions, the student-scholars demonstrated the transformative potential of creative investigations as a vehicle for self-knowledge and healing. The article points to the importance of connecting artistic endeavor with transformative learning as both reach beyond cognitive responses to knowledge. Our findings support the vision that self-discovery processes lead to integration and social awareness which informs teaching.