Across the Bridge: A story of community, sociality, and art education

The article examines the planning, development, and outcome of an experiential learning project that brought together undergraduate studio art students and the workers of a power plant about to shut down. As one of the instructors for the project, I reflect on how our emergent pedagogical methods interfaced or conflicted with students interests, and plant employees. Principles of phenomenological research inspired my early steps to the study. However, its operative conceptual framework follows the thoughts of socially engaged artists Suzanne Lacy (2010) and Pablo Helguera (2011), guiding an analysis of the relationships between students and workers with instructors as observer-participants. I investigate how these roles and relations developed through different modalities that ranged from familial sentiments to memorializing impulses, including the industrial conditions that inspired various sensual and aesthetic student responses. I argue that the production of artwork as autonomous objects, which constituted the self-evident outcome of this community-focused experience, contributed only a transactional materiality to the project, and that the relational exchanges from which transformative experiences originated, offered unrivaled creative possibilities.Published versio

The Changing Understanding of North American Archaeology and Native American Heritage

This article explores the evolving ways in which anthropologists, archaeologists, and the United States government have viewed Native American cultural heritage, especially in terms of burials and grave goods. I begin with a historical view of the looting and racism that plagued the disciplines since their inception, and move into the present, while examining how NAGPRA has enabled indigenous communities to have a voice concerning what happens to their heritage, thus transforming archaeology in beneficial and productive ways that were previously not thought possible

Presence: the search for wisdom in a socially engaged art education project.

A socially engaged art pedagogical and relational experiment brings to light the necessity to trust the unfolding of personal and communal change as elusive yet credible value. Social practices of art, including art for social justice often situate the goals of their artistic project in qualities of relational exchanges. This paper reviews an experiment led through a pedagogy of presence for an open art studio at a homeless shelter for women. Narrated through the structure of Ground, Path, and Fruition, a Shambala conceptualization of life’s change, the paper is written from a personal, and philosophical storytelling approach. It situates the pedagogy of presence in the art studio as a shared method of discovery, experienced differently by every participant. Part social art practice inflected with quiet activism, part meditation, and borrowing from theories of adult learning, the qualities of presence at the open studio offered a centring counterpoise to the precarious living situation experienced by participants, enhancing human connections through shared artmaking, listening, and a sense of social belonging.Accepted manuscrip

Learning Conditions in the Context of R&D and Development Projects: Empirical Evidence from a Research Centre

Today's changing environment is bringing about a major transformation of the way organizations operate. Most of the discussion about such evolving environment focuses on the necessity for organizations to continuously renew their stock of knowledge and competencies. This renewal takes place through a learning process by which knowledge is acquired and transferred throughout the organization. In practice, some authors have proposed that development projects can act as catalysts on the way firms learn and accrue know-how. While these projects lead to new products, they also allow for a transformation of the organization in which they take place. This study builds on previous research and proposes an empirical exploration of how, in practice, project management can support organizational learning through development projects. Data used for this research contains information on 139 R&D projects undertaken in a large corporation located in Quebec. L'environnement actuel impose une importante transformation des organisations. Ces changements sont principalement guidés par la nécessité d'accroître le niveau de compétences et de savoir-faire, tant au niveau individuel qu'au niveau collectif. Ce renouvellement constant du potentiel organisationnel s'opère par la voie d'un processus d'apprentissage qui touche tous les niveaux de l'organisation. En pratique, cet apprentissage est facilité par la réalisation de projets de développement. Ce type de projets, selon plusieurs auteurs, agit comme catalyseur et permet d'accroître plus rapidement la capacité des firmes d'apprendre. Par le fait même, ces projets induisent des changements importants dans les façons de faire des organisations. La présente recherche s'inscrit dans ce courant actuel qui vise à mieux comprendre le processus d'apprentissage organisationnel par la voie de réalisation de projets de développement (produits/procédés). Cette étude exploratoire s'appuie sur des données portant sur 139 projets réalisés dans une organisation québécoise dédiée à la R&D et au développement de produits.Organizational learning, project management, product development, research and development, Apprentissage organisationnel, gestion de projets, développement de produits, recherche et développement

Innovative Efforts as Determinants of Export Performance: The Case of Specialized Suppliers

This paper presents empirical evidence on the relationship between innovative efforts and performance on international markets for the specific case of small firms acting as specialized suppliers . In addition to tangible efforts such as R&D expenditures, intangible efforts are also considered. Results clearly identify specific innovative efforts as determinants of export performance. Moreover, the study results suggest a particular innovative profile for global specialized suppliers, especially as it relates to R&D collaborative agreements and information scanning sources used in the product development process. Les résultats présentés dans cette étude portent sur le lien entre efforts innovateurs et performance sur les marchés internationaux, dans le cas particulier des petites firmes appelées fournisseurs spécialisés . Outre les efforts de nature tangible telles les dépenses en R-D, les efforts de nature intangible sont également considérés. Les résultats permettent d'identifier clairement un certain nombre d'efforts comme déterminants de la performance à l'exportation. L'analyse révèle par ailleurs un profil innovateur propre aux fournisseurs spécialisés mondiaux , notamment en ce qui a trait aux accords de collaboration en R-D et les sources d'information utilisées dans le processus de développement de produits.Innovation; Performance; International markets; Specialized suppliers; R&D, Innovation ; Performance ; Marchés internationaux ; Fournisseurs spécialisés ; R-D