Artistic Makings as a Method of Inquiry in Higher Education

Academic practices have been going through rapid changes in recent years in the way they operate, as well as their role in society (e.g. Hayles 2012). University students are still expected to acquire new knowledge and think critically within their field of studies while facing new modes of thinking and a more unpredictable post-graduation future (e.g. Barnett 2004). In our teaching we have addressed these changes through multiple intersecting pathways. The ambition was to engage the students as independent thinkers and actors in a continuous and creative inquiry process, where they are encouraged to explore productive failing and new multimodal modes of critical thinking. In the article we provide examples of how we framed the processes the students went through and analyse the key components that allowed them to access new areas of thought and acquire new (artistic) strategies to work with going forward.