Writing-with Others as Artist Pedagogy

Introduction

Aino-Kaisa Koistinen’s project “Writing-with Others as Artist Pedagogy” (2023-2026) examines collective writing as a feminist, situated and embodied practice in the context of artistic thinking and artist pedagogy. The project considers collective writing – or writing-with – not only as writing with other human beings, such as scholars or artists, but also as in the practice of writing with artistic, literary and academic traditions, personal and shared histories, more-than-human animals, natural and constructed landscapes, and other more-than-human actors. What kinds of artistic thinking and situated knowledges does writing-with others bring to the fore? What kinds of implications does this have for an eco-sensitive, eco-justice artist pedagogy? What does writing-with have to offer to the broader collective aesthetic, poetic, and also activist, practices needed amidst the interconnected environmental and social crises (or, the polycrisis) of the so-called Anthropocene? To negotiate these questions, the project brings together feminist pedagogy, environmental/eco-justice pedagogy and artist pedagogy, combining these with theoretical discussions of literary and cultural studies, queer and gender studies, feminist posthumanities, ecofeminism, and animal ethics, as well as Koistinen’s creative practices as a poet/writer.