Relational Ethics Through the Flesh: Considerations for an Anti-Colonial Future in Art Education

Abstract

In this article, we reflect on our teaching practices that include the development of an artist-in-residency program in one teacher education course and one graduate course in the Fall of 2022 at The University of British Columbia. During these residencies, Carrier Wit’at artist and printmaker Whess Harman and Indigenous scholar and a/r/tographer Jocelyne Robinson of the Algonquin Timiskaming First Nation demonstrate through their art practices how love and land are central tenets to relational ethics. We engage with Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua’s theory in the flesh alongside the artists-in-residencies as we consider an anti-colonial future in art education. We propose the concept of relational ethics through the flesh as a reflexive, embodied, social justice–oriented way of being in the world.