The Interdisciplinary Witness: Interdisciplinary Pedagogy and Speaking the New

Interdisciplinarity has become an increasingly important goal for both industries and universities around the world, championed as a necessity if the “wicked problems” of our times are to be addressed. Creative practices such as art and architecture have long histories of interdisciplinarity and therefore play an important role in preparing students for careers that will necessarily be situated in an environmentally challenged future. This chapter cites several art projects that collaborated across art, architecture, science and engineering, and which in turn engaged transformative pedagogical approaches to connect audiences and students with ecological imperatives. The case studies demonstrate different interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies being effectively combined in the making of contemporary art and design. As institutions, universities have always been characterised by the evolution, splitting, and reforming of disciplines such that “routine interdisciplinarity” driven by emerging challenges is a defining feature (Davies & Devlin, 2010). Boyer acknowledged this imperative in his seminal 1990 report for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he introduced the notion of a scholarship of integration: “the work of the scholar also means stepping back from one’s investigation, looking for connections, building bridges between theory and practice” (Boyer, 1990).