The Mobile ArtLab
The Mobile ArtLab is a very flexible starting point, prefacing a longer learning journey for our young people. It doesn’t tell them what direction to head off in, and it does not instruct them what to look at along the way. It may, however in the same way that a giant pointing hand on a theme park map can, help to orientate young people, highlighting and identifying further and higher education opportunities.
What is it?
The Mobile ArtLab is a self contained portable workspace, delivered in a trailer by an interdisciplinary team of students and staff. It is a site specific, sharable working model of our delivery approach for Widening Participation.
The main outcome from this strand of our research is that situation/place is important, if not crucial to facilitate meaningful engagement in Widening Participation activities. Traditional learning spaces will attract students who are comfortable in them, but not the young people who are hard to reach and who are a key focus for our WP.
Where can the Mobile ArtLab go?
As a research unit, the Mobile ArtLab is perfectly placed to develop a test bed for WP approaches through art and technology, Encouraging our young people, increasing life chances and future careers, which in turn are all our futures.
There is still an overwhelmingly pressing need for academia to engage with our young people. We must continue to collaborate, to co-construct and to connect meaningfully through our creative projects.
The Mobile ArtLab is another research area that we can offer to link with even more potential partners (both academically and with other providers such as industry, health and social provision).
It is these types of partnerships that will enable us to take our research, our actions and interventions into greater environments such as health, education policy change, teacher training and to collaborate with the technology providers themselves.
Jon Lockhart – Phd Candidate – ArtLab
readingartlab.com 