<p> This thesis investigates how my representations of experience through arts-informed autoethnographic research are significant in establishing the pedagogical nature of place. I seek to understand how <i>place-conscious education</i> in a community setting can encourage students&rsquo; relationships with the spaces they inhabit and lend to a more just learning environment. Many educative tools are provided and analyzed which are derived from <i> wayfinding</i> and <i>psychogeographic</i> methods. Data was collected over two months throughout the Summer of 2015 while participating in the Onward Israel service learning program in Israel and Palestine. My digital photographs and excerpts of stream-of-consciousness style poetry serve as the data set to illuminate the rich sensory encounters and art making processes indicative of experiential learning.</p><p> This context-driven artwork encourages questions and dialogue about sociopolitical conflict and wars, migration and occupation. It is concerned with physical as well as psychological borders, checkpoints and boundaries. I utilized poetic and photographic inquiry as well as cognitive mapping to explore how concepts of <i>travel</i> are intricately linked to practices of self-reflexivity, community building and alternative curricula development outside of the formal classroom setting. This qualitative data is not a strictly defined set of interviews or statistics. Instead, vignettes of a more totalizing experience can be extracted, analyzed, dissected and/or rearranged. It is an exploration of identity, agency and untraditional ways of knowing the self/Other. I underscore how new pathways and possibilities for teaching emerge from a greater acceptance and validation of experiential knowledge and an attuned consciousness to place.</p>

<p> This dissertation is a case&nbsp;study, written from my perspective as a new museum professional and museum educator. The work explores the museum as an institutional and community space and demonstrates how museum educators may understanding their role and the roles of their peers in a relational way with the aim of increased productivity.</p><p> Using a contemporary university art museum as the setting, I and 14 of my museum colleagues, at least one from each department at the museum,&nbsp;discuss our understandings of: co-creation, collaboration, physical mental and social space individually and as a group. The questions that guide this study are: </p><p> &bull; What do art museum staff members communicate about their understanding of their roles in co-creative and collaborative education programming and museum exhibition design in contexts of relational space in the museum? </p><p> &bull; What indicators of internal dialogue are revealed in this exploration? </p><p> &bull; &nbsp;What do these conversations uncover about staff understanding(s) of the spaces that they work in as relational? </p><p> &bull; What ideas arise regarding possible change for the museum&rsquo;s approach to collaborative and co-creative education programming and museum exhibition design?</p><p> I utilize two methodologies, case study and auto ethnography, to create a relational accounting of my experience and how my understandings and perspective changed during this process.</p><p> I also incorporate a theoretical frame grounded in theories of relational space from Martina L&ouml;w and Henri Lefebvre to guide my research. To highlight my methodological frame, I collected observations and reflections about the one-on-one interviews and two large focus groups I facilitated in my research journal. I captured photographs of my colleagues&rsquo; work spaces to serve as visual aids for the readers regarding my process and interest in space. </p><p> Themes include those guided by the methods that focused on understandings of: co-creation, collaboration, physical space, mental space and social space. Participants also discussed additional properties that shape their understanding of these terms. They include: age, untapped staff talent, the impact of hierarchy in the museums&rsquo; internal structure, staffs' varied understanding of the museum visitor and power in different spaces.</p><p> From my perspective, these findings represent opportunities for new museum professionals and educators to strategically approach their transition from in-classroom learning to the workforce. These findings also present opportunities for museum educators to reimagine the formal and informal learning opportunities museums can offer those interested in a career in the museum sector and museum education.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation explores narratives that emerge from a community-museum collaboration while working with refugees in relation to Trinh T. Minh-ha&rsquo;s (2011) concept of the boundary event. Within this study the boundary event is explored as moments of overlap where identity, experiences, knowledge, and processes are continuously being negotiated; by embracing or leaning into these moments, community-museum programs can develop multivocal narratives&mdash;where no single voice is heard as distinctly clear or separate. These co-created museum narratives stand in contrast to educational and engagement strategies that aim to instill knowledge and elevate community with the museum as the expert. In this dissertation 16 participant voices&ndash; of 15 refugees and one museum educator&ndash; mingle, coalesce, and complicate museum narratives. These narratives are participant-created (data presentation) as well as researcher-constructed (analysis and interpretation). Using the methodological lens of narrative inquiry and decolonization I investigated data collected from over a two-year period (summer 2013-summer 2015) including: content and wall labels collected from two exhibitions, one marks the beginning of the study in 2013 and the second in 2015 concludes the study; gallery activities collected over the course of the two-year study; and educator field notes from the 28 individual sessions. Ultimately, I argue that multivocal narratives, and embracing moments defined as the boundary event, complicate traditional hierarchy and expected stories of refugees and new migrants illustrating how difference can positively disrupt linear, static, and authoritative institutional narratives.</p><p>