Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education - Exploring Situatedness in Partnership with ELIA, Part 1, Apr 2025

This article describes an approach to STEAM education in which art is viewed as a unique discipline with distinct ways of thinking. The researchers developed and evaluated a STEAM education programme to explore how art and science work together to expand and accelerate inventive thinking among Native American middle school students who participated in American Indian Services (AIS) Pre-Freshman Engineering Program (PREP). An important focus of this project was the unique local environment and culture that included Diné culture in Gallup, NM. We hypothesize that integrating culturally responsive, transdisciplinary art into an existing STEM summer programme will increase student engagement and understanding of art and science as ways of inquiry, personal exploration and constructing knowledge. We assumed that art thinking can enhance students’ sense of autonomy and competence. Our primary research question was: How does a culturally responsive, art-integrated STEAM curriculum influence student thinking, learning and understanding of connections between art and science? The research contributes to developing and evaluating out-of-school-time STEAM learning opportunities, adds to the knowledge of how to connect culture to STEM education through arts integration and contributes to improved educational outcomes through art and design integration in rural Indigenous communities.

This article focuses on the role of situatedness through the concept of dérive in game-based learning to increase one’s awareness regarding the memory embedded in built environment. A newly designed game, Memory Hunt based on the system and rules of Treasure Hunt, is utilized with the aim of increasing the architecture students’ awareness regarding the sites of memory in the case of İzmir Kültürpark. During the game, students detach from their existing pattern and begin to experience the space from a different perspective. The use of the dérive theory of the Situationist International provides a valuable framework for the study in analysing survey results of the students’ changing memory of the selected site before and after the game. The results of the research indicate that the game not only enriches participants’ perspectives on the chosen locations and increases their awareness regarding the collective memory of urban space, but also makes them create their unique psychogeographical maps.

The article studies situatedness in relation to a crisis caused by Russian military aggression towards Ukraine, artistic reactions of Kharkiv-based musicians to the war and its consequences. Theoretical aspects of the phenomenon of situatedness in art and the topic of artists’ creativity during the wartime are regarded; the state of artistic life and education in Kharkiv is studied, both before and during the war. The necessity of a decolonization approach in Ukrainian artistic education is stressed, the results of this process being refusal of usage of Russian educational, scholarly and artistic content, intensification of integration into international educational and scholarly space, fruitful synthesis of Ukrainian educational and scholarly traditions and international experience. It is proven that the war has engendered a counterreaction among artists, which manifested in a sequence of unique artistic situations in Kharkiv as a near-frontline city, in other cities of Ukraine and abroad. It is shown how the performative activity of talented Kharkiv-based musicians D. Karachevtsev and I. Chernyavsky takes place not only in the safe locations but also in the spaces aestheticized by the situatedness of the war: on the streets, near the ruined buildings, in the underground. Specifics of the ‘war works’ by O. Shchetynsky, D. Malyi, K. Palachova and V. Bohatyrov are studied, which can be seen in the reduction of the difficulty of the musical language, usage of Ukrainian folklore (either as stylization or as quotation) and the prevalence of quiet music. The extreme contrast between artistic and real spaces becomes a background on which the inversion of situatedness of the war occurs: one can observe a powerful surge of achievements of the artists. This real-life situation subjects to aestheticization in art, and opens unique creative possibilities.

As educators, artists and researchers committed to increasing attention and sensitivity to the natural world, we have been working with students, university staff and researchers on experiences involving immersion in Nature. As we know, the past few years have been unsettling and even paralysing: in addition to the pandemic, we presently witness wars and acute climate crises. Reconnecting to Nature from our surroundings and working with the physicality of matter may be a way to escape the menaces of catastrophe and unblock creativity in order to imagine other futures. This article aims to reflect on This is Not a Silent Spring, a workshop held as part of the event ELIA Academy 2023 under the theme ‘Exploring Situatedness’ in May 2023, Évora, Portugal. In this action, participants were first invited to immerse in the sixteenth-century frescoes depicting birds at Casas Pintadas and then in the sounds of the birds on site, which they captured and interpreted in the form of an onomatopoeia. A short walk allowed them to collect plant materials, which were used to craft some appealing tributes to these animals – onomatopoeic vegetal objects – against the threat of a silent spring. The drift, the attention to birds, as also the haptic dimension involved in the construction of the objects, allowed for joy and a deepening of environmental awareness in connection with the place and with the more-than-humans who inhabit it.

This article highlights the importance of employing artistic and sensory methods in placemaking design and participatory land research to engage diverse voices and experiences. The study is organized into two main sections: first, it explores the interconnections between placemaking, place attachment and tacit (ecological) knowledge; then, it proposes sensory methodologies capable of engaging, capturing and conveying the tacit knowledge of place. Expanding the framework of placemaking to include participatory approaches to land decision-making, the article presents a case study conducted in a rural landscape, specifically the Hungarian floodplains, illustrating the application of artistic and sensory methods in understanding and communicating complex human–environment relationships. While the primary objective of placemaking is to collaboratively design and transform public spaces, creating environments that reflect the community’s identity and foster a sense of belonging, the study highlights how the prevailing consultation methods often exclude specific publics from both participation and knowledge creation. Utilizing a key case study that investigates the tacit ecological knowledge of floodplain farmers along the central stretch of Tisza River in Hungary, the article demonstrates how participatory sensory and artistic methods can reveal insights beyond verbal communication, contributing to a multidimensional and integrated understanding of human–environment relationships.

The author crafted immersive experiences specifically designed to guide and inspire students, academics and design professionals. These experiences challenged participants to confront real-world problems and actively experiment with potential solutions. In May 2023, ELIA recognized the author’s contributions by inviting her to present at their Academy event in Évora. During the presentation, the author shared insights from her ongoing research and facilitated an interactive workshop that engaged all participants. The author explored the concept of situatedness, emphasizing the importance of feeling connected to the environment, the people around us and our own bodies. This exploration highlighted the need for educational practices that prioritize a bottom-up approach, where the body is positioned as a foundational element, not because of its lesser significance but simply due to its physical location beneath the brain.