Memories in Motion - learning, process, history and art in public space

Oct 15, 2026

Memories in Motion explores an art project as a model of public pedagogy, showing how art-making and installation can examine how history is constructed while republishing it in public space. Learning occurs through movement, documentation, and research within a specific site, generating artworks that return to the same location as installations. The approach challenges conventional learning about history and public space, shifting agency to students as community cultural producers while highlighting power structures and political dimensions of public space.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Learning in public space

History, memory, and agency

Art as process and public learning

Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 55, Number 3, November 2015 Memories in Motion: learning, process, history and art in public space Debbie Qadri Victoria University This essay presents an art project as an example of two aspects of public pedagogy. The first, is that the project critically examined how history is made, and through art-making and installation it performed an alternative publishing of history. Secondly, the art project was utilised as both a process and outcome within public space, and through this contributed to raising awareness for both participants and audience about the politics of public space. Through both aspects the project shed light on acts of public pedagogy as a process of questioning our normal relationships with history and public space. Memories in Motion was a project where learning took place within a particular public space by moving through, documenting and researching it. This learning was generated into artworks, which were then taken and placed back into that space. These actions disrupt the normal conventions of learning about history and of public space, and shift the agency of telling history and using public space to the students. Keywords: public art, history, community, public pedagogy Introduction Learning in public space involves moving out of the classroom, into and through another space. The Memories in Motion project, used 380 Debbie Qadri a particular physical space-the three blocks between the Sunshine Primary School and the Sunshine Railway Station-to explore the idea of history and how it is made. Art making processes were also used to reflect on and develop the students’ learning which were placed back into that space as installations. These two learning processes, of action research and art making fed into one another. Both began by physically walking around the space and then returning again and again and again. My role as artist in the project was to facilitate the student’s use of art to reinterpret and render their own version of history and the placing of that art into public space. As part of my art practice I am interested in how artworks by the community can disrupt the norms of public space and provide new ways of thinking about identity, history and culture. It could be argued that history is formed by memories, but few of these memories end up being published and incorporated into the official stream of history. Whose points of view and memories are recorded for posterity, are often those who have access to the means of production of history, those with literacy, money to print, access to the means of communication and those considered to have the authority to tell the story. Henry Giroux states, ‘History is not an artefact to me merely transmitted, but an ongoing dialogue and struggle over the relationship between representation and agency’(Giroux, 2004:68) . Through Memories in Motion, the students used their own memories and research to explore the history of the space and its relationship to themselves. They wrote their own versions of local history, and through their artwork it was ‘published’ into public space. They became their own cultural producers (Giroux, 2004:68) and through the inclusion of their own memories, their versions became personal and local. This model of learning in public space uses a range of forms of knowing, such as discussion, documentation, research, interview and being there. This documentation was re-interpreted using a range ofactions; claymaking, drawing, painting, arranging, writing, photographing, recording, and filming. Here the artwork is a process not product. The artwork is a learning tool for generating thoughts in an open way that allows many (student) historians to speak and a diverse range of narratives to surface. The artwork demonstrated the plurality of history and an open-ended instead of defined approach. The use of public space as a place of learning and also as a place to publish

FAQs

What is the core idea behind the Memories in Motion project?

Students learned about a particular public space by moving through it, documenting and researching it, and then turning that learning into artworks placed back into the same space as installations.

How does the project challenge conventional ways of learning about history?

It disrupts standard conventions by treating the artwork as a learning process that opens up many student “historians,” thereby showing the plurality of history rather than a single defined narrative.

How does public space factor into the project’s political meaning?

Using public space both for learning and for “publishing” learning draws attention to power structures and supports a broader attempt to link pedagogy beyond the classroom with ideas of citizenship and democracy.

Oct 15, 2026

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