Following an hermeneutic perspective (Gadamer, 1989; Ricoeur, 1973, 1974) and setting out from epistemological considerations on education and art as lived experience, this paper presents a methodological reflection on the use of collage as a practice for exploring education.

Education, in terms of bildung, takes different forms, ranging from structured and intentional to informal. In this sense, education overflows into life: subjects experience situations or events that may have an educational impact on their lives, but do not necessarily view all of these situations or events as educational experiences. It is a crucial aspect when the education is searched out of its institutional contexts.

This consideration, though coming from within a different perspective, recalls John Dewey’s point of view on “art as experience” (Dewey, 2005): in a lecture on aesthetics, Dewey observed that “art is a quality that permeates an experience; it is not, save by a figure of speech, the experience itself” (Dewey, 2005, p. 338).

It follows that art may be considered an key means of exploring the dimensions of what it is to be human (Barone & Eisner, 2012), because it allows the artist to experience – at the time of the artistic creation –what has been experienced – during his or her life. Thus, art may be seen as a powerful approach of research (Barone &Eisner, 2012; Knowles & Cole, 2008; McNiff, 2008; Sullivan, 2004). From the perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology (Van Manen, 1990), the fine arts represent valuable mediums through which to access the meanings of lived experiences.

Within this framework, the present paper discusses the use of collage-making as an artistic practice which can be considered as a way of transition through which exploring education as lived experience. 

Collage has been widely used in qualitative research, as a source of data that can elicit inner insights and provide access to the research subject's perspective (Leitch, 2008). Researchers have also used it as a specific method of reflection and conceptualization (Butler-Kisber, 2008; 2010; Norris, 2008; Vaughan, 2005) or, as for example in collaborative research approaches, to create something new, with the new product becoming the object of analysis (Thompson, 2008).

This paper wants to reflect on its potential in the educational field of research. Collage is an artistic technique based on arranging cuttings from different materials (paper, images, photographs, fabric and so on) onto on a frame. Indeed, in collage making, the creator goes from collecting data to interpreting and composing it into a text, or work, to be considered a whole. This process involves the transformation of a series of elements, which had a previous life and shape within their original contexts, into a new shape and form of life. In this sense, collage-making becomes the experience of re-shaping that which is already given, in an hermeneutic circle of interpretation.

In order to analyze the use of this technique as a research method within the field of the education, I present the example of a study carried out with adults (women and men) with the aim of exploring the educational impact and meanings held for them by their travel experience.

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