Contiguity, collaboration and community: becoming-literate in the intra-connected ecology of things; as people in place through practice and process

This visual essay elicits insights from a teacher/researcher/artist exhibition held on the North-West Coast of Tasmania, Australia, in October 2021. In exploring what it means for teachers to make art together, Contiguity: A sharing of stories showcased a collaboration of four teacher-artist-storytellers. In attending to the contiguous nature of our approach to practice, we articulate how engagement in and with visual arts enable entangled intra-actions between teachers and place. As a professional learning process, the collaborators were becoming-literate in the intra-connectedness of students/teacher/ materials/place. We have come to recognize the value of such experiences as essential for creating circumstances conducive for pedagogic reflection, growth and development in, through, and from art practice. By creating a contiguous space for making and responding teachers developed and embraced literacies that illuminate the entanglement of human and non-human beings.