Affective togetherness in arts education: Lingering on a performative approach to wool felting

Abstract

This article explores moments relating to affect and togetherness as expressed by three groups of teacher training students who participated in different performative wool felting sessions during 2018 and 2019 at two Norwegian universities. A performative approach to the subject of visual arts in teacher education is characterised by fostering intra-actions among the participants engaging bodily with each other, space, time and materials, in an open-ended, creative way. The students express feeling of togetherness stimulated by intra-actions in such relational processes during performative approaches to wool felting. The leading question throughout this enquiry is what kind of togetherness the participants express. This is seen in dialogue with the work of Brian Massumi about affect. I borrow concepts from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, along with theoretical insights from Karen Barad, to share those experiences with the reader.