Everyday Artfulness

Everyday Artfulness A posthuman perspective on young children’s play with materials

Lucy Hill

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hill, Lucy, 1968- author.

Title: Everyday artfulness : a posthuman perspective on young children’s

 play with materials / Lucy Hill.

Description: New York : Peter Lang, 2024. | Series: New disciplinary

 perspectives on education, 2297-6531 ; Volume 7 | Includes

 bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023056299 (print) | LCCN 2023056300 (ebook) |

 ISBN 9781800797840 (paperback) | ISBN 9781800797857 (ebook) |

 ISBN 9781800797864 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Art—Study and teaching (Early childhood) | Creative

 activities and seat work. | Art in education.

Classification: LCC LB1139.5.A78 H55 2024 (print) | LCC LB1139.5.A78

 (ebook) | DDC 372.5--dc23/eng/20231218

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023056299

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023056300

The original PhD research for this book was generously funded by an Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship, a Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Award, and an Exploring and Thinking Bursary award from the four Dublin Local Authority Arts Offices. This publication has been generously supported by Dublin City University Institute of Education Staff Research Funding Scheme.

Cover image: © Lucy Hill.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISSN 2297-6531

ISBN 978-1-80079-784-0 (print)

ISBN 978-1-80079-785-7 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-80079-786-4 (ePub)

DOI 10.3726/b19472

© 2024 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom info@peterlang.com – www.peterlang.com

Lucy Hill has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Lucy Hill is a visual artist and academic. She was the inaugural Prof. John Coolahan Early Years Artist in Residence at The Ark Cultural Centre for Children in Dublin (2018). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Art Education at Dublin City University, School of Arts Education and Movement.

About the book

‘In a world where environmental challenges, education and activism converge, this is an important addition to the field of art and early childhood education. It identifies a post qualitative research approach and provides an ethical alternative to the difficult and urgent challenges facing future artist educators and researchers in Ireland today.’

– Dr Dervil Jordan, Emeritus Professor of Education, NCAD

‘This thought-provoking book is an essential read. Lucy’s aesthetic lens offers a fresh perspective for early years professionals’ as it reveals the infinite richness of children’s learning with materials. It is full of AHA moments on the artfulness of everyday moments, you will think differently about the material world.’

– Mary Skillington, Lecturer, Atlantic Technical University, Ireland

This work suggests that art has more to offer education than diverting activities grounded by ideas of human exceptionalism. Posthuman perspectives of everyday playful activity in Early Childhood Education and Care, can offer alternative ways of seeing and understanding nature/culture entanglements. Tuning in to young children’s play with materials through a posthuman theoretical lens, can orientate adults’ attention toward the innate artfulness of young children’s everyday moments of learning and growth. This perspective reveals how such moments of intensity and learning always occur in complex relation with diverse others, human and non-human, natural and technological, living and non-living. This emphasises the undeniably rich, yet easily overlooked, relationship with the material and social complexities of the world, upon which all human learning and growth relies.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

This work is dedicated to my children Sadhbh, Cathal and Aenea