studioFive—A Site for Teaching, Research and Engagement in Australian Arts Education

This chapter explores arts education in Australia through the S.P.A.C.E. ontology. Using studioFive within the Melbourne UNESCO Observatory of Arts Education at the University of Melbourne as a case study, this chapter foregrounds a multidisciplinary facility that offers numerous semiotic affordances, researchoriented processes, and ways to extend into intercultural research. Through such research capacity building, a broad aim of studioFive is to provide mentoring of next generation of arts-based educational researchers, to establish partnerships for further theory development, and to push the boundaries of research methodologies through which to surface and share the power of the arts in education and culture. studioFive is a purpose-built site for multi-modalities and cross- and interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research in arts education at the University of Melbourne. This chapter extends on this and advocates for an education-based approach, which considers the enactment of the Australian Curriculum, arts-based initial teacher education, the continued professional learning of teachers and the potential for intercultural, international research in, through and across the art