Dr. Laura Trafí-Prats

Dr Laura Trafi-Prats

Senior Lecturer

My profile

Biography

I have developed a career in art and education with a focus on urban contexts, first in Barcelona, later in Milwaukee and now in Manchester, and with two strands of work. The first strand has been the creation and support of professional networks connecting art educators in schools and museums around the development of quality experiences and learning in the visual arts with a focus on teachers as researchers. The second has centred on the development of a body of art-based enquiry in collaboration with urban children and youth. This has involved visual, aesthetic and spatial interventions in the city to stimulate, elaborate and express sensorially-rich and nuanced experiences of and with urban environments. Children and youth living in cities often grow attached to the negative meanings dominantly associated to marginal and anomalous urban spaces. My published work has built on post-foundational and materialist philosophies and pedagogies, feminist black studies and decolonial theory to envision alternative senses of place that explore transversal and genenerative connections between the hierarchizing discourse of institutions like the school, the museum, the university and the emergent, improvisatory, and micropolitical practices of children and youth.

Lidar scan of a school space captured by a Year 12 student in the context of project: Mapping spatial pratcices and social distance in smart schools: Sensory and digital ethnography methods (ESRC: ES/V006436/1)

Interests and expertise

- Arts education in formal and informal contexts

- Childhood art

- Arts-based research 

- Visual and digital ethnographic methods

- Postfoundational theories and philosophies and their influence in arts education and education research

Get in touch

0161 247 5260
Brooks Building

Projects

I am currently leading the ESRC project: Mapping spatial practices and social distancing in smart schools: Sensory and digital methods (ES/V0006436/1). A summary of the project can be read in here.

Previous research projects include:

AWARDED RESEARCH GRANTS AS PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

2020-2021  Sensing poetics of black space: A research creation project of spatial and environmental exploration of the black outdoors with youth, artists and researchers in Tallahassee. Research Development Fund 2019/20. Manchester Metropolitan University. PI: Laura Trafí-Prats. Research Mentor: Liz de Freitas. Funding: £4.586

2010-2014   Advancing reading and math through the arts. .US. Department of Education, Development and dissemination grant program. Co-Pi: Cindy Walker, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Funding:  $126.481

2008-2009 A narrative study of elementary children’s aesthetic perspectives of urban environment and change. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Graduate School, Graduate School Research Awards. Co-PIs: Jeanne Nemeth, Ph.D. and Sue Pezanoski Browne, K-5 art specialist. Funding: $10.000.

AWARDED RESEARCH GRANTS AS CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

2021-2022 Mapping spatial practices and social distancing in smart schools: Sensory and digital ethnographic methods - ESRC Research Methods Development Grants (2020) Ref: ES/V006436/1 | January 1st 2021-May 31st 2022 – PI Elizabeth de Freitas, MMU, Co-PIs: Nils Jaeger, University of Nottingham, Albena Yaneva, University of Manchester, Laura Trafí-Prats, MMU. Funding: £199.048.96.

2018-2019  Local Alternatives: Sensing, thinking, and making with young people in the Anthropocene. £5000. MMU Research Accelerator Grant (Research and Knowledge Exchange). PI

2010-2011 Teaching and learning visual critical literacies with urban youth.. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Graduate School, Research Growth Initiative (RGI)-2010. PI:  Kimberly Cosier, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Funding: $49.440.

2004-2005 Educació artística, aprenentatges i infància. Una recerca sobre la comprensió crítica i la pràctica de l’art als museus i les escoles. (Art education, learning and childhood: A study on critical understanding and art practice in museums and schools). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, PNL2004-43 PI:  Montserrat Rifà, Ph.D., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Funding: €10.000

2003-2006 El papel de la escuela primaria en la construcción de la subjetividad. (The role of primary school in the construction of subjectivity). MEC (Spanish Ministry of Education and Science), BSO2003-06157. PI:  Fernando Hernández, Ph.D., University of Barcelona

1996-2000  Conocimiento base y estrategias de comprensión del hecho artístico. Una investigación sobre la comprensión del conocimiento artístico representado en soporte multimedia. (Art’s knowledge-base and strategies of understanding: A study on art knowledge and its representation in multimedia platforms). MEC (Spanish Ministry of Education and Science), CICYT 595-0204. PI:  Fernando Hernández, Ph.D., University of Barcelona.

SPECIALIST COLLABORATION IN RESEARCH GRANTS

2014-2016  Arts Eco. Margaret Cargill Foundation. PI: Kim Cosier. https://uwm.edu/arts/arts-eco/. Funding: $545,300

Contributions: I designed and taught the curriculum of the Innovative Teachers’ Institute at Lynden Sculpture Garden directed to foster through a 4-year plan a collaborative ecology between pre-service, in-service teachers, K-12 art specialists and museum educators around the development of art-nature curriculum in partnership with the Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee).

Teaching

I teach in the programmes of UG Hons Early Years and Childhood Studies, with a focus on play, arts, creativity and children’s cultures, and in the programme of MS of Social Research with an emphasis on theory, methodology and research design. 

I am currently supervising three doctoral students.

Prior to my post at MMU, I have worked with teacher candidates, artists, museum educators, culture activists and leaders at Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where I have taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses focused on arts and education, including curriculum development for pre-school, primary and secondary, arts and childhood, and art theory and aesthetics. 

Research outputs

                                        BOOKS

Trafí-Prats, L. & Castro, A. (Eds.) (2022) Visual participatory arts-based research in the city: Ontology, aesthetics and ethics. Routledge. Publication date April 7th, 2022

Trafí-Prats, L. & Schulte, C. (Eds). (2022).  Language, sense and the event of drawing in childhood. In Springer book series: Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories. (Submitted. Currently under editoral production).

                                                                                        JOURNAL ARTICLES

Tesar, M., Duhn, I, Nordstrom, S. N., Koro, M., Sparrman, A., Orrmalm, A., Boycott-Garnett, R., MacRae, C.,

Hackett, A., Kuntz, A., Trafí-Prats, L. , Boldt, G., Rautio, P., Ulmer, J. B., Lenz Taguchi, H., Murris, K.,

Kohan, W.O., Gibbons, A., Arndt, S. & Malone, K. (2021). Infantmethodologies. Educational Philosophy and Theory,[first published online] https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.2009340

Trafí-Prats, L. (2021). Thinking and conversing with Illich and Baldacchino [Book Review]. Studies in Art Education, 62(4), 424-428, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2021.1975950

Trafí-Prats, L. (2021). Thinking affective pedagogies at the intersection of Popular Media, Digital Technology and Gurokawaii. Studies in Art Education, 62(3), https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2021.1936427

Trafí-Prats, L. (2021). Thinking learning events with the immanence of concepts [Commentary]. Studies in Art Education, 62(2), 178-183, https://doi-org.mmu.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/00393541.2021.1896253

Trafí-Prats, L. & Caton, L. (2020). Towards an ethico-aesthetics of parenting: Sensing ritornellos of play with GoPro data. Genealogy, 4(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4020034. Special issue: ”Reimagining Childhood, Motherhood, Family and Community”, edited by Jayne Osgood and Allison Sterling Henward.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2019). Aesthetic post-phenomenological inquiry: A compositional approach for the invention of worlds. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(5), 432-439 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419857454 Special Issue: Unsettling traditions: Reimagining the craft of phenomenological and hermeneutic inquiry. Guest Editors: M.D. Vagle, J.J. Thiel, & Brooke Hofsses.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2019).  Fugitive pedagogies: decolonising Black childhoods in the Anthropocene. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 41(3), 359-371 https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1589671 Special Issue: Childhood and the Anthropocene. Guest Editors: Affrica Taylor, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw & Peter Kraftl.

Trafí-Prats (2017). Learning with Children, trees and art: For a compositionist visual art-based research. Studies in Art Education (58), 4, 325-334.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2016). Girls’ aesthetics of existence in/with Hayao Miyazaki’s Films. Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies, 17, (5), 376-383. Published at the special issue: “Girls from outer space: Emerging girl subjectivities and reterritorializing girlhood”. Guest Editor: Michael Bae-Dimitriadis.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2015). Reactivating ARTIUM’s Collection: The time-image and its mode of address as prosthetic pedagogy in museums. Qualitative Inquiry. (21) 6, 575-588.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2015). Pedagogies of cinematic affect and a childhood-yet-to-come. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, (12), 2, 162-164.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2014). The existential territories of global childhoods: Resingularizing subjectivity through ecologies. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, 31. Retrieved from https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2014/iss31/5

Trafí-Prats, L. (2013). Pensar la pedagogía de la direccionalidad a través de la imagen-tiempo: Un proyecto filosófico, curatorial y pedagógico a partir de la colección ARTIUM. Visualidades (11) 1, 9-35.

Trafí, L. & Woywood, C. (2013). We love our public schools: Art teachers’ life histories in a time of loss, accountability, and new commonalities. Studies in Art Education (55), 1, 7-17.

Trafí-Prats, L.  (2012). Urban children as emancipated viewers: Narratives of self and place in the city of Milwaukee. Studies in Art Education (53), 2 125-137.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2012). Transponer el antropocentrismo Petz: Para una pedagogía basada en el devenir-animal y la doble visualidad. Revista Instrumento (14) 2, 208-217. [Special issue on Visual Culture].

Trafí-Prats, L. (2009). Destination Raval Sud: A case study on pedagogy, aesthetics, and the spatial experience of growing up urban. Studies in Art Education (51), 1, 6-20.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2009). Art historical appropriation in a visual culture-based art education, Studies in Art Education (50), 2, 152-166.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2008). A Visual culture art education curriculum for early childhood teacher education: Re-constructing the family album. The International Journal of Art & Design Education (27), 1, 53-62.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2006). Perturbar la historia del arte desde el lugar de la espectadora: las aportaciones de Pollock y Bal a los estudios visuales. Visualidades (4) 2, 81-100.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2005). Reconstruir las historias de la educación artística y de la infancia desde una política crítica de las representaciones en el arte, la cultura y la cotidianeidad. Visualidades (3) 2, 5-38.

Rifà, M. & Trafí-Prats, L. (2005). La producción de la subjetividad en la formación inicial. Cuadernos de pedagogía, 350, 74-77.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2004). Art Interpretation as subject constitution: Research on the role of critical art History in teacher education, The International Journal of Art and Design Education (23), 1, 26-34.

Trafí-Prats, L. (1999). Educadores dialógicos y skate punks significativos. Un viaje al humanismo popular. Kikiriki-Revista de cooperación educativa, 51, 36-42.

Trafí-Prats, L. (1996). Coleccionar para comprender y ordenar imágenes culturalmente heterogéneas, Qurriculum 12-13, 91-112.

                                                                                           PUBLISHED BOOK CHAPTERS

deFreitas, E., Trafi-Prats, L.., Rousell, D. & Hohti, R. (2022). A poetics of opacity: Towards a new ethics of participation in gallery-based art projects with young people. In L. Trafi-Prats & A. Castro Varela (Eds.), Visual participatory arts-based research in the city: Ontology, aesthetics and ethics. (Submitted. Currently under editorial production).

Trafí-Prats, L. & Fendler, R. (2020) Postproductive methods: Researching modes of relationality and affect worlds through participatory video with youth.  In M. Thomas & R. Bellingham (Eds.). Post-qualitative research and innovative methodologies (pp. 19-34). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN: 9781350062061.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2020). The cucumber party: For a posthumanist ethics of care in parenting. In C. Schulte (Ed). Ethics and research with young children: New perspectives (pp. 129-146). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN:9781350076457.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2019). Thinking childhood art with care in an ecology of practices. In M.  Sakr and J. Osgood (Eds.). Postdevelopmental approaches to childhood art (pp. 191-209). London: Bloomsbury.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2018). Mothering as a feminist aesthetics of existence. In C. M. Schulte & C. M. Thompson (Eds.) Communities of practice: Art, play, and aesthetics in early childhood (pp. 197-212). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2017). What do Walmart, gandma’s house, church, a motel or the school library have in common? Investigating video self-portraits of place with elementary children. In M. Emme and A. Kirova (Eds.) (2017). Good question: Art-based approaches to collaborative research with children and youth (pp. 179-193).  Victoria: Canadian Society for Education through Art.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2016). Dis(ney)ability: Reconceptualizing normalcy through an embodied arts research curriculum. In J. C. Garlen & J. A. Sandlin (Eds.) (2016), Teaching with Disney (pp. 175-192). New York: Peter Lang.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2016). An art research of urban spatial practices and mobilizing images:  Emancipating bodies and signs at Montevideo’s Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo. In Pam Burnand, Elizabeth McKinlay & Kimberly Powell (et. al.) (Eds.) Routledge International Handbook for Intercultural Arts Research (pp. 227-237). London & New York: Routledge.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2016). Para una formación del profesorado basada en el cosmopolitanismo: Curriculum derivativo y posibilidades de exploración indirecta de la subjetividad. In, M. Oliveira &  F. Hernández (Eds.). A Formaçâo do professor e o ensino das artes visuais.  Santa Maria, Brasil: Universidade Federal de Santa Maria.

Trafí-Prats L. (2013). La mirada de la pluralidad: pedagogías de lo visual, lo expuesto y lo visible. R. Martins & I.Tourinho (Eds.). Processos e práticas de pesquisa em cultura visual e educação (pp. 371-392). Santa Maria, Brazil: UFSM. ISBN: 9788573911855

Trafí-Prats, L. (2012). Fuera de control: Laboratorio de imágenes obliteradas (Out of Control: Laboratory of obliterated images). In Mar Villaespesa & BNV Producciones, Estancias: Prácticas restituyentes de la colección ARTIUM (Stanzas: Restitutive practices on the ARTIUM collection) (pp. 23-28 / 38-40). 10, 8, 2011-4, 8, 2012, ARTIUM, Vitoria, Spain.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2012). De la cultura feminista en la institución arte (2000-2011). In Mar Villaespesa (Ed.) Desacuerdos vol. 7. Sobre arte, políticas y esfera pública en el Estado español (pp. 214-245) Seville: BNV Ediciones with MACBA, MNCARS, Arteleku, Montehermoso. ISSN: 978-84-92505-64-7.

Trafí-Prats, L. (2010). Introducción: Griselda Pollock: Una trayectoria intelectual en el feminismo, la historia de la modernidad y el análisis cultural.  In G. Pollock (2007). Encuentros en el museo feminista virtual. Tiempo, espacio y el archivo, (pp. 7-38). Madrid: Cátedra. ISBN: 97884376-26918.

Bosco, A., Rifà, M. & Trafí-Prats, L. (2010). Espacios, tiempos y saberes para una subjetividad reflexiva: la escuela Bellaterra. In Fernando Hernández (Ed.) Aprender a ser en la escuela primaria (pp. 99-124). Barcelona: Octaedro.  ISBN: 9788499210599.

                                                                           SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND CREATIVE WORKS

Trafí-Prats, L., & Begun, R. (in consultancy with Rousell, D & de Freitas, E..) (2019, August). Memories of the future II. A urban video workshop with artists, activists and researchers. Ausland Gallery, Berlin. Organized by Digital Anthropologies and Sense Lab.

Rousell, D., Trafí-Prats, L. & deFreitas, L. (2019, July). Memories of the future. A urban video workshop with youth during Manchester International Festival.

Rousell, D., de Freitas, E., Trafi-Prats, L. (2019, May). Remixing Thick Time. Exhibition at Whitworth Gallery, in collaboration with Young Contemporaries (age 16-25).

Trafí-Prats, L. (2019, Feb.) Moving with lines and light. Two workshops of material play for children and parents 3-6. Curated and hosted at Brooks Drama Studio. Manchester Metropolitan University.

Trafi-Prats, L. (2018, July). Clayground. Manchester Metropolitan University Community Festival.

Trafi-Prats, L. (2017, June). Generation Z – Summer Show. Exhibition. Z-Arts Center, Manchester, in collaboration with Generation Z children and youth (12-16 years old).

Trafi-Prats, L. (2015, June). A school year of sensing and artmaking with Fratney’s trees. Exhibition at La Escuela Fratney, Milwaukee, in collaboration with two classes of 5th grade.

Trafí-Prats L. (2014, March-June). Laboratory of co-curated with Villaespesa, M. & BNV Producciones & Trafí-Prats, L. (2011). STANZAS. Restitutive Practices on the Artium Collection. ARTIUM, Vitoria, Spain.

Rifa Valls, M., Trafí-Prats, L.  & Giménez, X. (2007, November). Childhood narratives: biographies, places, communities, CEIP Collaso i Gil, Barcelona, Spain.

                                                                                                 CONFERENCES AND DISSEMINATION

IN PREPARATION

2022  Animacy, event, place and duration: New images of thought in the study of children’s drawings. Panel organization for RECE 23-26, Vancouver, June 23-23. Other panel participants: Christine M. Thompson Penn State University), Sylvia Kind (Capilano University), Chris Schulte (University of Arkansas).

2022  Sensing duration in Sylvie’s drawing Paper to be presented as part of the panel Animacy, event, place and duration: New images of thought in the study of children’s drawings. RECE 23-26, Vancouver, June 23-23.

2022  Mapping learning environments: Interdisciplinary connections between education, architecture, and design. Panel organization for BERA, September 5-8, Liverpool. Other panel participants, Liz de Freitas (Adephi University), James Duggan (Manchester Metropolitan University), Ben Blackwell (University of Mancherster). Discussant: Peter Kraftl (University of Birmingham).

KEYNOTES AND INVITED INTERNATIONAL SEMINARS

2021    “What else art can do? Collaboration with children and families in art education”. Studies in Art Education Annual Invited Lecture. Annual Meeting of the National Art Education Association Chicago, March 4.

2018  Thinking-doing parenthood with a posthumanist ethics of care and being alongside other kinds. In Plenary panel: Mattering, knowing, ethics and care: Post-human approaches to parenting in neoliberal times. Co-panelists: Abigail Hackett and Christopher Schulte. 26th Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education, Copenhagen, October 14-18.

2017    Drawing as a process of inquiry: Embodiments, material inventions, and lived experience with young people. Creative Research Methods Symposium, Oxford University, UK. Organized by Department of Education, June, 28.

2015    Aesthetic encounters between children and urban nature. Steps towards a cosmopolitan place-based curriculum.  In response to Creative Time Summit. Institute of Visual Arts INOVA, Milwaukee, August 14.

2014 Cartografías de Montevideo: Subjetividad, memoria y activación del espacio urbano, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay & Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo, Montevideo, Uruguay.

2013    Pensar la pedagogía de la direccionalidad a través de la imagen-tiempo. Un proyecto filosófico, curatorial y pedagógico a partir de la colección ARTIUM. Opening Lecture. Seminario Nacional de Pesquisa em Artes e Cultura Visual. Universidade Federal de Goiania, Goias, Brazil, June 12-14.

2013  Para una formación del profesorado basada en el cosmopolitanismo: Curriculum derivativo y posibilidades de exploración indirecta de la subjetividad. Keynote addres at II Encontro Nacional De Formação Docente Em Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June, 3-5. Organized by Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro (UFRJ), Universidad del Estado de Río de Janeiro (UERJ) and Universidad Federal de Goiás (UFG).

2006  Course: Feminist histories and discentered narratives of modernity. Visiting lecturer at International Venice University, Venice, Italy. Spring Term, February-June.

2004 Invited seminar: Feminismos, narratividad y arte contemporáneo, Centro Nacional de las Artes, México DF, México, October 15-20.

                ORGANISATION OF PANELS/SYMPOSIA

Feb. 2020. Decolonial childhood ecologies and pedagogies of sensation in the city. 4th European Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, Malta. Co-Panelists: Marek Tesar (University of Auckland), Rikka Hohti (University of Helsinki), Mira Koro-Lundberg (University of Arizona).

Sept. 2019. Concepts for Art Education Futures. Panel chair: Laura Trafi-Prats. 4th Annual Art Education Research Institute. Teachers College, Columbia University. Co-panelists: Dónal O’Donoghue (University of British Columbia), Brooke Hofsses (Appalachia State University).

March 2019 New materialisms and the reclamation of language in children’s drawing. National Art Education Annual Meeting, Seminar of Research In Art Education, Boston, National Art Education Annual Meeting, Boston. Co-panelists: Christopher Schulte (University of Arkansas), Christine Marmé Thomson (Pennsylvania State University).

Oct. 2018 - Mattering, knowing, ethics and care: Post-human approaches to parenting in neoliberal times. 26th Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education, Copenhagen. Co-panelists: Abigail Hackett (MMU) and Christopher Schulte (University of Arkansas).

Oct. 2017 Repositioning childhood studies in new patterns of relationality. Panel chair: Laura Trafí-Prats. 25th Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education Conference, Toronto, October 24-27.

                 CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2022 Exploring anti-Blackness and Black life with youth Through spatially oriented art inquiry practices, NAEA. Annual Meeting of the National Art Education Association, New York March, 3-5.

2020 Counter-temporalities and black sense of space: Pedagogies of video-making at the end of the city. In the symposium: Decolonial childhood ecologies and pedagogies of sensation in the city. Symposium coordinated by Laura Trafí-Prats. 4th European Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, Malta, February 5-7.

2020 Memories of the future. In the symposium: Intensive atmospheres and ubiquitous sensation: Arts-based inquiry and new configurations of digital life. Symposium coordinated by Elizabeth de Freitas. 4th European Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, Malta, February 5-7.

2019 The concept of sense in art education: Attuning to the emergence of pedagogy. In the panel: Concepts for Art Education Futures. Panel chair: Laura Trafi-Prats. 4th Annual Art Education Research Institute. Teachers College, Columbia University. September 19-21.

2019 Alternative images of collaboration: Remixing thick time. Collaboration, Creativity and Complexities Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, June 26-27. (Co-presented with David Rousell, Liz de Freitas, Riikka Hohti).

2019 Carrying the line with Sylvie: Drawing as an immanent predicate in early childhood practice. In the panel: New materialisms and the reclamation of language in children’s drawing. Panel chairs: Christopher Schulte and Laura Trafí-Prats, National Art Education Annual Meeting, Boston, National Art Education Annual Meeting, Boston, March 14-16.

2019 An aesthetic and emplaced approach to thinking with materials in early childhood education. National Art Education Annual Meeting, Boston, March 14-16.

2019 Video-sensing the world in aesthetic collective practices with young children. In the symposium: Reconceptualising early childhood literacy beyond anthropocentricity. Symposium chairs: Maggie MacLure & Abigail Hackett. DigiLet: Reconceptualising Early Childhood Literacies: An International Conference, Manchester, March 7-8.

2019  Thinking early childhood literacy with the force of art. In symposium: Young children’s language and literacies as material, bodily practices. Symposium chairs: Maggie MacLure and Abigail Hackett. 3th European Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, Edinburgh, February 15-17.

2017    Intergenerational play with videogames as an SF practice of making with people, things, places. In the panel: SF inquiry: Repositioning childhood studies in new patterns of relationality. Panel chair: Laura Trafí-Prats. 25th Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education Conference, Toronto, October 24-27.

2017    Remaking the urban, rethinking the city: Participatory visual arts-based research projects. National Art Education association 2017, New York, New York, March 2-7. (Co-presented with Rachel Fendler and Aurelio Castro).

2017    Thinking with data diffractively on growing up and going on in the landscapes of the post-industrial city. 1st European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Leuven, Belgium, 6-10, February. (Co-presented with Ross Schlemmer).

2017    Becoming-with the common worlds of our school block:  Inhabitations, images and stories that matter. Childhood studies in the Anthropocene: International conference. Conference organized by Peter Kraftl. University of Birmingham, UK, June 6-7.

2016    A collaborative visual ethnography on mythopoetic understandings of children’s common worlds. Annual Conference of the British Education Research Association, Leeds, UK, September 13-16.

2016    Co-creating the smooth spaces of art and pedagogy at Lynden Sculpture Garden. In Plenary session: Ontologies of becoming: Mapping encounters through art, Chair: Ross Schlemmer. 12th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana-Champaign, USA, May 18-21.

2016    Hayao Miyazaki’s shōjo heroines: The double production of gender and common worlds. In plenary session: From outer space: Reterritorializing girlhood and its research. Chair: Michelle Bae Dimitriadis. 12th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana-Champaign, USA, May 18-21.

2016    Transubjective becomings and processual creativity in mother-daughter entanglements. In plenary session: Neoliberalism, inquiry, and the ethico-aesthetic turn in children’s creative practices. Chair: Christopher Schulte. 12th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, May 18-21.

2016    Re-making art education as a shared expanded public practice. Higher Education Division forum: Art educators in academia as public intellectuals. Chair: Juan Carlos Castro. National Art Education Association, Chicago, March 16-20.

2016    An art-based research practice on the corporealities, sensations and affects of a childhood yet-to-come. Council of Policy Studies in Art Education. Symposium theme: Field work in art education. Chair: Dónal O’Donoghue. National Art Education Association, Chicago, Illinois March 16-20.

2015    Mapping Montevideo: Living/transiting/making space otherwise. National Art Education Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, March 26-28.

2015    Embodying Disney: Experimenting with radical senses of beauty, feminist re-mythification, and teacher’s subjectivities. American Education Research Association, April 16-20, Chicago, Illinois (Co-presented with Gina Ruchalski).

2015    The representational spaces of Address and Time in ARTIUM’s Collection.  In Plenary session: The Prosthethic Pedagogy of Art, Moderated by Dr. Charles Garoian. Eleventh International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Urbana-Champaign, USA May 20-23.

2015    Embodying Disney: Experimenting With Radical Senses of Beauty, Feminist Re-mythification, and Teacher’s Subjectivities. Eleventh International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana-Champaign, USA, May 20-23 (Co-presented with Gina Ruchalski).

2014    Production of space and childhood cultures in a context of new materialism: Multisensory inquiry and the knowledge that comes-from-the-outside. Blurring Educational Boundaries: Young People’s Agency in Learning Practices, University of Barcelona, November 6-7.

2014    The representational spaces of address and time in ARTIUM’s Collection. In Plenary session: Embodied homelessness, becoming-other, and representational spaces. Chair: Charles Garoian, Penn State University. 10th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana-Champaign, USA, May, 21-24.

2014    Resingularizing the existential territories of childhood through prosthetic visuality and the art of Ahlam Shibli. 10th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana-Champaign USA, May 21-24..

2013    Re-making public space: Art-based research implications, National Art Education Association National Annual Meeting. Fort Worth, Texas, March 7-10. (Co-presented with Rina Kundu, Kimberly Powell, Valerie Triggs).

2012    Loving our public schools: Lives of art specialists in a time of loss and possibility, National Art Education Association National Annual Meeting. New York, New York, March 1-4. (Co-presented with Christine Woywood).

2012    A studio-centered model for arts integration: Strategies for cooperation, and mentorship. National Art Education Association Annual Meeting. New York, New York, March 1-4. (Co-presented with Kimberly Cosier, J. Lovo, R. Krippendorf).

2012    The Dérive and inscriptions of the city. 3rd International Conference on the Constructed Environment, Vancouver, Canada, October 25-26. (Co-presented with Rina Kundu).

2012    Cartographies of Lynden Sculpture Garden: Teaching and learning space through nomadic practices. Third International Conference on the Constructed Environment, Vancouver, Canada, October 25-26. (Co-presented with Rina Kundu).

2012    Reclaiming the public: Life histories of urban art teachers in a time of new commonalities. 8th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 16-19. (Co-presented with Christine Woywood).

2011    The gaze of plurality: Pedagogies of the visual, the exposed, and the visible.  National Art Education Association 2011 Convention, Seattle, Washington, March 17-2.

2011    Teaching and learning visual critical literacies with urban youth. National Art Education Association National Annual Meeting, Seattle, Washington, March 17-20 (Co-presented with Kimberly Cosier).

2010    Urban Imaginaries and spatial practices: 3rd graders filming their urban places. National Art Education Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, April 14-18.

2010    The work of art as a visual event: learning about history, memory and the image. National Art Education Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, April 14-18.

2009    ABC Milwaukee: The visual culture literacies of growing up urban. 3rd Global Conference Visual Literacies: Exploring Critical Issues. Mansfield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, July, 14-16.

2009    A collaborative research study about children’s aesthetic and social perspectives on urban space and place. National Art Education Association 2009 Convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 17-21 (Co-presented with Jeanne Nemeth and Sue Pezanoski Browne).

2008    Knowing ourselves: Collaborating in teaching arts in a new era. First Annual Conference Arts Education – to what end? NYU Steinhard School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York, New York, March 7-8. (Co-presented with Robin Mello and Jennifer Vitrano).

2008    Interpreting the construction of place and subjectivity through the performance of urban photography: A visual narrative research on the critical understanding of art and childhood. 15th International Conference on Learning, Chicago, Illinois, June 3-6.

2007    Visual culture in the education of early childhood student-teachers: the reconstruction of the family album. National Art Education Association 2007 Convention, New York, New York, March 15-18.

2007    Researching the production of visual narratives in an education project based on the understanding of Robert Frank’s photographs. National Art Education Association 2007 Convention, New York, New York, March 15-18. (Co-presented with Montserrat Rifà).

2006    Sabers, competències i identitats en una educació artística per a la comprensió crítica de la cultura visual i la infantesa en l’etapa d’educació infantil. IV Congreso Internacional de Docencia Universitaria e Innovación (CIDUI 2006). Barcelona, Spain, July, 5-7.

2006    Researching the production of visual narratives in an education project based on the understanding of Robert Frank’s photographs. International INSEA Congress 2006, Viseu, Portugal, March, 1-5. (Co-presented with Montserrat Rifà and Xavier Giménez).

2005    Les pedagogies visuals de la infància en el cànon de l’alta cultura catalana. 1e Congrés d’educació de les arts visuals, Terrassa, Spain, September, 1-3.

2005    El sujeto de la escuela primaria en los programas de formación inicial del profesorado.). International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement. ICSEI2005. Barcelona, Spain, January 2-5. (Co-presented with Montserrat Rifà).

2004    Perturbar la historia del arte desde el lugar de la espectadora: las aportaciones de Pollock y Bal a los estudios visuales. I Congreso internacional de estudios visuales. ARCO Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain, January.

2002    Interpreting the “Gaze” in A Bar at the Folies Bergere. The social construction of discourses in critical art history and visual culture. 31st International Society for Education through Art World Congress, New York, New York, August.

2003    Repensar el paper de l’educació de les arts visual des dels estudis de cultura visual [Panel coordination]. Jornades de debat. Repensar l’educació en les arts visuals. Polítiques de diferència, infància i cultura visual. Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain, January. (Introduction to Kerry Freedman and Paul Duncum presentations).

2003    Visual knowledge, local experiences and difference: Reconsidering cultural studies orthodoxy [Panel Session]. 3rd International Crossroads in Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom, July. (Co-presented with Carles Guerra, Fernando Hernández, Marta Ricart, Montserrat Rifà, and Aída Sánchez de Serdio).

2003    Repensar el lugar que ocupa la historia en el reconstruccionismo social a partir de una arqueología de los discursos sobre el arte y la educación de Dewey y Panofsky. V Jornades d’història de l’educació artística. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, February.

2001    Towards a curriculum based in visual culture: Connecting practices and knowledges. 1st International Society for Education through Art Iberian Congress, Porto, Portugal, November.

2000    Making home in a migration trip: The videographic testimony of a muslim woman. 3rd International Crossroads in Cultural Studies. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom, July. (Co-presented with Montserrat Rifà).

2000    Etnografia urbana, històries de vida i diferència als marges del MACBA. Congress Els valors de l’art a l’ensenyament. Universitat de València, Spain, July. (Co-presented with Montserrat Rifà).

             MEMBERSHIP IN RESEARCH BODIES

Now-2015 Elected member of Council of Policy Research in Art Education.

Now-2014 Steering committee member of Art Education Research Institute.

Now-2007 Active member of National Art Education Association.

MEMBERSHIP IN EDITORIAL JOURNAL BOARDS

2021-2023 Commentary Editor, Studies in Art Education

2021-2023 Member of editorial board of Studies in Art Education

Now-Oct.2019 Member of editorial board of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

2019-2016 Member of Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education editorial board.

2019-2011 Member of Studies in Art Education editorial board.

2016-2016 Member of Visual Arts Research editorial board.

In the last 10 years I have conducted many invited reviews for a variety of research journals including: Gender and Education, Children Geographies, Teachers and Teaching Education, Bank Street Educational Papers, International Journal of Education through Art, Childhood, Journal of Childhood Studies, Genealogy and Art Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal. I have also contributed to the review of a number of book proposals for publishers such as Springer, Routledge and Palgrave.