Finding Home: A doctoral adventure in research and creation

On November 24, 2006, I earned my PhD in Education from York University at the successful defence of my dissertation, Finding Home: Knowledge, Collage, and the Local Environments.

Finding Home was the Faculty of Education's first multi-modal doctoral dissertation—that is, a dissertation including a visual installation as well as a scholarly text. Both aspects are represented here, the illustrated text as downloadable PDF files, and the installation in QuickTime video clips.

Finding Home is an interdisciplinary exploration of how a person can create a feeling of being at home in the world, and of the role that the creative practice of collage can play in enhancing and expressing that feeling. The work is a collage of visual/tactile and textual practices, as well as a juxtaposition of personal, practical, and theoretical content drawn from the disciplines of education, ethics, and the arts; cultural, urban, and environmental theories; history and geography.

Broadening outwards from a personal perspective, Finding Home begins with my own process of developing a feeling of being at home in my Toronto neighbourhood around Bathurst and St. Clair, a process embedded in daily walks with my dog, Auggie; observation and research; encounters with individuals and the natural and built environment; and representation of my experiences and ideas through words and images.

Written as a particular walk with Auggie through the neighbourhood, the text interweaves personal content with a broader exploration of issues of home-making, and explores this project's interrelated practices of writing-the memoir form in particular-and visual art making. The visuals of Finding Home include large, naturalistic charcoal drawings of recognizable neighbourhood scenes, textile maps and sculptural objects, archival and contemporary photographs, and paper collages. (Images of these works are embedded in the text, while Appendix A describes the installation of the work at the Gladstone Hotel.)

Finding Home both addresses and embodies the possibilities of collage as a research methodology. The work has applications to projects in arts education and community arts as well as to notions of interdisciplinarity in creative practice and scholarship.

Finding Home builds on my earlier doctoral and master's research investigating visual arts practice as a mode of knowing, as well as on the recurring thematics of my creative work: identity and belonging; memory, storytelling, and cultural artefacts; and the spirit of place.

Finding Home: Knowledge, Collage, and the Local Environments

Note: For any questions or inquiries regarding the content or publication of the dissertation, please contact me.

The visual art component of Finding Home was installed at Toronto's Gladstone Hotel from November 23 to 26, 2006. The hotel's second floor public spaces were the site of the public exhibition, my dissertation defence (November 24) and celebratory party (November 25). As Toronto's oldest continuously operating hotel and, more recently, a fixture of the local arts scene, the Gladstone's own tonalities enrich my work's explorations of home and community.

A visit to the Finding Home installation at the Gladstone: two video views.

To view the video clips, please click on the links:

• Panorama (.mov - 2.9MB)
• Queen Street Dusk (.mov - 3.7MB)

Video clips courtesy of director/composer Nicholas Stirling and videographer Gregory Pilsworth.

These are excerpts from an 8-minute video visit to the installation, created by Nicholas Stirling, with two audio options: original music by Nicholas Stirling and narration by Kathleen Vaughan. For further information, please contact Kathleen.

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