Creative Exploration
 

Assessment 1

Assessment Overview

learning outcomes

The unit learning outcome assessed is: 

LO1: Articulate and explore the many and varied languages of human expression through personal, social and philosophical perspectives.

1. Clay as Resistance and Collaboration

• What to do: Try pushing, pulling, squashing, slicing, and rolling clay using only your palms or fists.
• Document: Observe how the clay pushes back. How does it resist or yield?
• Philosophical Link: Reflect on the dialogue between you and the clay—what does it say about relationships, struggle, or communication?
• Social Link: Imagine the clay as a metaphor for group dynamics or emotional boundaries.

2. Clay and Memory (Imprints & Echoes)

• What to do: Press found objects or natural materials (leaves, coins, keys, fingerprints) into clay.
• Document: Record the patterns/imprints and reflect on what memories or meanings they evoke.
• Personal Link: Reflect on how clay captures traces of time, presence, and identity.

3. Clay and Water: Transformation

• What to do: Gradually add water to clay while shaping it. Let it go from firm to soft, even to muddy.
• Document: Capture this transformation with time-lapse photos or journaling. How does the clay’s "voice" change as its consistency changes?
• Philosophical Link: Reflect on change, fluidity, and impermanence. What does the clay teach about letting go of control?

4. Clay and Breath

• What to do: Blow onto the clay, leave breath on it before shaping, or speak into a hollow created in the clay.
• Document: Reflect on the interaction between life and material. How does your body animate the clay? What is your energetic presence in this process?
• Artistic Link: Express the invisible forces (breath, heat, voice) that still shape matter.

5. Clay and Gravity

• What to do: Hold up a piece of clay and let it naturally droop or sag; try suspending parts to observe how gravity works on it.
• Document: Take a sequence of images showing gravity at work. Write about how the clay surrenders or collapses.
• Philosophical Link: Explore the weight of matter and the inevitability of natural forces in shaping all things.

6. Clay and Emotion

• What to do: Use clay to express your current emotional state without trying to make a figure or object. Just let hands and emotion guide you.
• Document: Reflect on how the emotion felt in the body and how clay received or reflected it.
• Personal Link: Link this to how young children communicate through materials before language.

1. Paper as a Sounding Material

• What to do: Crumple, tear, fold, and rub different types of paper (e.g., tissue, baking paper, cardboard, magazine paper).
• Document: Record how the sound varies and what it reminds you of emotionally or conceptually.
• Conceptual Link: Explore the philosophical language of paper—how does the sound of paper express tension, resistance, fragility?

2. Paper as a Light Modifier

• What to do: Play with how different papers filter light (hold translucent papers up to the window, layer them, poke holes, etc.).
• Document: Photograph changing patterns or shadows and write about the ephemeral nature of light and how paper mediates it.
• Social Link: Think about how windows (glass/paper) symbolise barriers or portals in communication or human expression.

3. Destruction as Expression

• What to do: Tear, soak, burn edges (safely), or smash wet paper, observing how it changes form.
• Document: Write journal entries or poems during destruction, linking the process to emotions or memories.
• Philosophical Link: Explore destruction as a form of creation. What does it say about loss, transformation, or letting go?

4. The Weight and Texture of Paper

• What to do: Compare different weights (e.g., cardboard vs. tracing paper), blindfold yourself and feel them.
• Document: Note how your body responds—emotionally or physically—to the resistance or flimsiness.
• Personal Link: Reflect on how paper reflects human identity (e.g., strength, transparency, vulnerability).

5. Paper’s Relationship with the Body

• What to do: Wrap, roll, press, or fold paper using different body parts (hand, foot, face).
• Document: Photograph moments where paper becomes a second skin or interactive surface.
• Artistic Link: Explore the intercorporeality—the idea that paper and body co-create meaning.

 Assessment Instructions

Throughout Sessions 1 – 3 we have used the text Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood to guide our material inquiries and help us understand materials from a conceptual viewpoint.

This task is a material inquiry. The goal of the task is to explore one material and document your process. The submission will consist of a series of images and writing showing the process and your thinking while doing it. This work must be informed by the set reading.

NOTE: This assessment can be completed with Generative AI assisted editing. Generative AI can be used to make improvements to the clarity or quality of your work created to improve the final output, but no new content can be created using AI - AI can be used, but your original work with NO AI must be provided in an appendix.

1.  
   1. ARTISTIC LANGUAGE
      1. Read the introductory chapter and the material inquiry chapters 2-5 of Pacini-Ketchabaw Encounters with Materials.
      2. Choose one material and the chapter on it in the Encounters with Materials book. 
      3. Closely read the chapter for the material you have chosen, making notes and reflecting as you read.
      4. Select one other reading from the unit (either from eReserve or from within sessions 1 – 3) to support your discussion of your artistic process and how it relates to communication and expression.
   2. MATERIAL
      1. Get your hands on the material. 
         1. Clay - use actual clay, not playdough, not modelling clay. Use something as close to 'earth' as you can.
         2. Paint - any kind of paint is fine, even paint made from materials around your kitchen or home.
         3. Charcoal - you can buy artist's charcoal, or use charcoal from a fire
         4. Paper - explore the different kinds of paper available, there are more than you'd think!
   3. INQUIRY
      1. You must do this part live online with your lecturer observing. Your lecturer will let you know when. You must have your camera on and be set up so that your play with the material can be seen.
      2. Play with the material. See what it can do. You can use the Material Inquiry Document (from Session 1) to guide your thinking and provoke your exploration. Try to approach the material without an outcome or product in mind. 
      3. Use the ideas from the readings and let them influence what you do and think.
      4. Document your playing and thinking as you go. You can take photographs or video.  Draw. Write. Record. Collect rich documentation of your inquiry – both the physical exploration and your thoughts.   You can get someone to help you by taking photographs of you while you are doing this.
      5. Consider personal, social and philosophical perspectives about the material and your experience of it and how you can communicate with and through the material. 
      6. Be ready to answer questions from your lecturer about the reading you have done and how it affects your thinking as you explore the material.

FINAL DOCUMENTATION

1.  
   1. Refine your documentation. Include the best parts of your play and exploration and connect what you are doing, thinking and feeling to ideas in the readings. Make clear links, referenced correctly with in-text citations, to the readings.
      1. Choose a program/application to present your written and visual documentation. This could be photos on a Word Doc, PowerPoint, a Padlet, a video, an audio recording or a combination of these - there are many possibilities.

   2. All sources should be referenced correctly, using APA7, with in-text citations throughout the documentation. 

      If the task does not match assessment task instructions, the total grade is a 0 and will be investigated for Integrity breaches

      If the task does not draw from the course materials on VU Collaborate the total grade is a 0 and will be investigated for Integrity breaches

      Include a Reference List at the end. 

TIPS

• Use the tips in Session 3 in the article about Process-Focussed art 
• Do not include how you followed step-by-step instructions to make something 
• Do not approach the material with an end-product in mind, just play and experiment first! 
• Make frequent connections back to the associated concept in Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education, and your other chosen reading. For example, if you are working with clay - how are you thinking about the concept of ecologies? How is clay provoking your thinking about communication and expression? How are you connecting to clay personally, socially, philosophically

Common misunderstandings of this assessment task in the past have included: 

DO NOT 

• Follow step-by-step instructions for making origami (making paper boats or similar)
• Focus on creating a finished art work
• Show each step of the process in making a product, but not show how you played and experimented with the material
• Not connect to concepts in the reading Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood
   

Focus on process, not product, for this task.

Assessment Criteria 

The following levels of criteria will be used to grade this assessment task:

• Criterion 1: Documentation of play and experimentation with the materials (45%)
• Criterion 2: Connection to the readings (45%)
• Criterion 3: References (10%)

Submission Instructions

Upload your work to Assessment 1: Creative Works Dropbox, ensuring: 

• Any written text is submitted as a text document (this can be in addition to text appearing on a video, for example)
• Padlets or similar are saved as PDFs 
• Videos are uploaded to Panopto and submitted as per the instructions in Student Help Guide - Submitting a Panopto Video to the Assessment Dropbox

Please minimise the number of files you submit for this task.