This paper explores the implementation of and findings from Imagination Agents, a mixed-methods case-study, funded by a Royal Society of Arts Catalyst grant. This took place in an inner-city, Glasgow secondary school, with young people aged 12-13. The approach taken was intended to be ‘grassroots’ in addressing local, environmental degradation and issues relating to young people’s sense of agency. The project was co-created by researchers, parents, artists, artist-researchers, teachers and to a lesser extent, by the young people themselves. The conceptual foundation for the project was grounded in a flexible hypothesis that imagination enables the necessary originality for creativity, enabling learners to construct personal understandings of their own learning which equate to metacognition, with this enabling the self-awareness and confidence for personal and in turn, social/democratic agency. We propose that, life in a posthuman (Braidotti, 2013) world where we are living with a ‘convergent crisis’ of complex issues, necessitates the creation of new understandings, which can be produced through the application of imagination and agency, towards the conceptualisation and facilitation of positive change. Such change is more likely to be sustained if it emerges from and is meaningful within its relevant communities. Supporting learners to develop imagination and understand it metacognitively can result in personal agency which better-equips them as participants within and activators of healthy environments.
While highly regarded in arts education contexts, imagination is often perceived to be some kind of magical force, implying that it is unlearnable and unteachable. Based on Burns’ (2022) models of cognitive/metacognitive imagination and on Atkinson’s (2017) notion of ‘the force of art’ as enabling possibilities for new worlds, we investigated how to support young people’s imagination and agency in relation to their local environment. Artists and researchers, some of whom were also parents of young people within the school, developed conceptual models of imagination (Burns 2022) and agency (Priestly et al. 2015) into highly visual, self-completion ‘handbooks’ which acted as ‘catalytic tools’ (Baumfield et. al., 2009) in simultaneously supporting pedagogy and data production. Pedagogically, they provided an artistic space which complemented artist-led activities to encourage metacognition of imagination and agency. In terms of research, the handbooks enabled the visualisation of participant’s often tacit, reflective understandings of imagination and agency in relation to artist-led activities, allowing researchers to gain process-insights into participant’s developing imaginative, cognitive and metacognitive capacities. The application of the models within axial, visual, evaluation tools, enabled a quantitative reporting of impact which is less-usual in art-based projects and could be considered as a means of measuring imagination. We discuss the potential relevance and ethical implications of this within neoliberal contexts for art education. By combining young people’s self-reports with teacher, artist and researcher journal entries, this paper also reflects on how and to what extent the project was successful in supporting imagination and agency. The authors conclude that there was a positive impact but that this was hindered by multiple challenges inherent within the school environment. We go on to ask whether this school and by extension, others, are currently equipped, philosophically and practically, to support imagination and agency, discussing the implications of this for positive, social and environmental transformation.