This study mainly aims at designing an art and humanities curriculum integrated with art elements and investigating the fifth grade students' learning of art appreciation. The researcher selected four of the most basic art elements and organized them into four curriculum modules. Each curriculum module was integrated with highly-related art elements and having the invariable sensation as the core of connection. By implementing the four curriculum modules, students were able to gradually enhance their art appreciation abilities, including sensation, description, analysis, and appreciation abilities. Both the "Pre-class Preparation Worksheet" and the "Post-class Worksheet" recorded the processes of students' learning of art appreciation. Through interviewing students, the researcher observed and investigated changes of students' abilities of art appreciation and art deliberation. Findings of this study are stated as follows: 1. Curriculums Integrated with Art Elements (1) Art elements are the foundation of music art, visual art, and performing art. Both higher familiarity with concepts of art elements and maturity of operational techniques enhanced an individual's ability of art appreciation. (2) With the invariable sensation as the core of the integrated curriculum of art elements, students were able to start the learning of art appreciation through physical and mental perceptions. Students were allowed to have a profound experience of appreciating arts. 2. Ability of Art Appreciation (1) After receiving the art and humanities curriculum integrated with art elements, the enhancement of students¡¦ art appreciation abilities, including sensation, description, analysis, and appreciation, was obvious. (2) Along with the improvement of the recognition of art elements, students' ability of appreciating the artworks enhanced greatly. Students' self-confidence was also strengthened. 3. Teaching of Art Appreciation A curriculum integrated with art elements is capable of maintaining the spirit of art elements; such a curriculum is able to maintain and advance the connotation of art appreciation and avoid art teaching from becoming unsystematic. At last, based on the findings of the study, the researcher proposed some suggestions to designing the future art and humanities curriculums.

This practice based PhD research is conducted through my installations One Hundred Ten Thousand (2011-12), Rituals to Mutations (2013) and Blackballing (2013). It is a journey from the sites of propagation marginalised villages in the outskirts of Beijing and a forgotten Buddhist temple in Chongqing, Central China - through the production processes to exhibitions in global venues. This research examines the potentiality of nomadism as a political position. This specific agency provides a unique setting through which this inquiry makes a contribution to the field of contemporary art in the contexts of globalisation, nomadic subjectivity, new materialism and the posthuman/postanthropocentric condition, and to visual language. It argues for a more ethical and material relationship with others, human and non-human. I examine how transformative, intersubjective relations, nomadic politics, extensive lived experience, local knowledge and different levels of collaboration might be addressed by my artworks and how these processes might be encountered by the viewer. I explore how the use of these different fluid connections in my work might transform our sense of ourselves and our relationship with others, human or not. As a process of rereading and reconstituting, starting from specific cultural details like those of Chinese village graveyards, and interconnecting spatial, historical, sociopolitical and metaphysical reconfiguration, the research project examines the possibilities of merging them with emergent, unexpected bodies of knowledge and systems of interdependence. Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytical notion of abjection is a frame of reference through which I develop methodological tools. In this research, I situate this psychoanalytical, Eurocentric and rather limited notion in more anthropological and extended fields of relationships, especially in relation to notions such as ‘becoming’ (Gilles Deleuze) and animism (Anselm Franke), and to local knowledge and nomadic discourses (Rosi Braidotti). I do this in order to examine how oppositional relations between the Self and the Other and dualistic concepts might be transformed. I evaluate my research in dialogic relation to other artists’ works, via reflexive conversations alongside theoretical propositions and in relation to my political nomadic position as a researcher and practitioner. This research leads to a re-evaluation of how concepts of abjection and resistance might be rethought in art practice. By integrating processes of abjection with Deleuzian ‘becoming’, my artworks explore how transformative processes of, for example, material(ities), rituals or pollution, might be engendered in systems of relations in which oppositional relations between subjects and objects (human and non-human) are destabilised and operate inclusively.

abstract: ABSTRACT Millions of US aging individuals are at risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the early stage of Alzheimer's disease (Ad). Ad is progressive; there is no clinical cure to date. Certain drugs treat symptoms yet fog memory. Memory activity is critical to strengthen cognition. The Phoenix Art Museum (PAM) and Banner Alzheimer's Institute (BAI) founded the Arts Engagement Program (AEP), a non-clinical, specialized arts program for adults with (MCI) and their caregiver. The museum environment is thought to enhance communication and raise self-esteem in certain MCI individuals. The interior surroundings may spurn memory enhancement. Scholarship to substantiate this theory is minimal; therefore, further studies are required. Empirical literature regarding design elements researched specific types of memory impairment was employed. The hypotheses that design elements of the museum's infrastructure and design elements from art themes enhance memory, and the results of these findings when applied to other environments enhance memory emerged. An experience-based study was performed. Semi-structured interviews noting design elements of both infrastructure and art were conducted after each of nine AEP sessions with volunteers from 8 dyads, a term used by the PAM as one caregiver and one MCI individual. The presiding docent was later interviewed. Volunteer interviews with dyads and docents was coded and ranked. Overlapping themes that tallied five or higher were considered significant due the low sample size. Results showed that neither group considered infrastructure design elements or art theme design elements a contributor to memory enhancement. The hypotheses proved null. Both groups expressed pleasure in experiencing the PAM’s environment. Keywords: MCI, infrastructure, art themes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Design 2015

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Marjorie R. Hancock / Children who struggle in reading must be offered additional pathways of communication in order to enable them the opportunity to express themselves and enhance listening/viewing comprehension. Through understanding of the elements of art, the utilization of artistic response, and exposure to distinctive literature such as Caldecott Medal picture books, students are better equipped to grasp both visual and textual meaning. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the convergence of the elements of art, artistic response, and Caldecott Medal picture books and how they influence the listening/viewing comprehension of the struggling reader. Two, forty-minute lessons were given exclusively about the seven elements of art prior to the listening/viewing of Caldecott picture books. Participants engaged in the listening/viewing of six selected Caldecott Medal picture books through an initial listening/viewing within a small group setting, a second listening /viewing followed by an individual interview, and a third listening/viewing combined with an artistic response to each Caldecott picture book in a small group setting. General questioning concerning both story elements and elements of art were asked during both the initial listening/viewing and artistic response. Specific questioning occurred during the individual interview. Data were collected through interview and discussion transcriptions, visual and audio taped group work, field notes, and actual artistic response artwork. Data analysis revealed the enrichment of listening/viewing comprehension of the participants through 1) verbal usage of the elements of art, 2) comments regarding the elements of the story- setting, characters, events, problem, solution, 3) discussion of topics relating to personal experiences, 4) the dialogue of art media and the importance of art, and 5) distinct qualities of the picture book message theme articulated through artistic response. Art opened up the world of expression for the nine participants in this qualitative case study. Through the elements of art and artistic response combined with Caldecott literature, children were able to convey knowledge through an alternative pathway in order to enhance their listening/viewing comprehension of the picture books. Furthermore, documented evidence of the motivation of the participants indicated the value of exploration of rich literature and creative expression through artistic representation.

This thesis is concerned with the illustration for children and its visual perception of the younger school age children in terms of Leisure time education. There are two parts in my thesis, a practical part and a theoretical part. The theoretical part describes the Younger School Age from a view of the Behavioural Psychology and also of the factor participating in an Education and Leisure time education of children. The thesis also includes the illustration, introduced as a part of Art, its historical evolution and an evolution of the Czech Illustration for children. There is also mentioned a personality of the illustrator and his creative language in this part, and moreover there is an introduction of popular illustrators of the 20th century and their production for children. The practical part is focusing on a realization of the project. It is divided in two main parts. The first part is formed by activities related to the Literature and Illustrations for children, being a base for the qualitative research. The second part is devoted to the children perception of single areas relating to the Illustration and its processing by the interviews made with children.