Touching collage: examining haptic potential in arts-based research through the lens of "Lucy's Picture"

Abstract

Collage in Arts-Based Research has great potential as a tactile, collaborative process but, in existing research, it is often presented as a predominantly visual medium. Using the children’s book Lucy’s Picture (Moon & Ayliffe, 1994) as a framework for my discussion, I examine the untapped haptic potential of collage and the resulting repercussions for ideas of inclusion. In the process, I draw on ten categories that provide fruitful sites for new understandings of collage to emerge and interact: embodiment; a conceptualisation of collage; touch; texture; play; memory; revolt; inclusion; intergenerational communication; and tactile illustration. While I conceptualise collage broadly as a piecing together of fragments in any context, in this article I explore collage as a specifically haptic medium that valorises embodied ways of knowing, rather than making recourse to the false dichotomy of body and mind.