Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of poetic economics through illustration teaching and learning within community-engaged projects. For many decades in creative education, industry-led competitions and live briefs have been undertaken to present students with professional challenges (Rochon 2021). Live briefs offer ‘rich experiential learning’ (Rochon 2021 p.44); however, can often be ordered around competition. Rather than seeking a competitive approach present in neo-liberal education and industry, community-engaged projects enable students to learn as a collective. As a lecturer, I am interested in how creative education can prepare students for an uncertain future by developing Learning for Sustainability competences such as critical thinking and empathy (Lakovidou 2025). I have found that some of the most successful ways of countering the threat of AI taking creative jobs have been through real-world experiences that connect communities and University students through meaningful interactions. Examples of this include MA illustration students working on an exhibition at The Waterways Museum, Gloucester and The Folk, part of the civic trust also in Gloucester (see figs. 1-3). Working within community projects that all students contributed to equally fostered collaboration between peers, confidence in engaging with the public, and skills-sharing. In this paper, I argue that such community-based projects offer skills and experiences that equip students with competences that assure creatives of their place in the world, as well as the professional skills of traditionally industry-led briefs and competitions.