Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

Socialising critical-thinking skills is the central aim of the Hikōi & Kōrero/Walk & Talk, a methodological approach employed with our AUT Toi Ataata/Visual Arts postgraduate community. The notion of a critical friend or companion is not new; however, in this context, the walking–talking process opens a network of connections that take the studio into the field, creating a reciprocal environment for contextual exchange. This exchange is premised on Barach Spinoza’s ‘parallelism’ that connects the body and the mind in a manner that does not prioritise either but brings to fruition the qualities of feeling the affective body, as it is always and already in the company of thinking the cognitive and contextual terrain. As movement of the body takes up a rhythm, thoughts are ignited, and the affect relations occurring draw upon the feeling body and the thinking mind in ways that can enhance each participant’s ability to act—which, in this instance, is a responsive and self-reflective act. The walking-and-talking becomes a discursive mode of critical thinking that sets artistic curiosities in motion by questioning and pondering a research project’s methodological and contextual structures with another. The value lies in the intellectual exchange as a common practice strategy for artists studying and working in the community. This pedagogical strategy is utilised in multiform within our postgraduate supervisions and contextual and studio courses. We will use this paper to reflect on the efficacy of the Walk & Talk as a tool for self-reflexivity in the studio-based practice-led tertiary environment.