Professor
Office: Scarfe 2223
Phone: 604–822-5322
Research Interests
- Artwork Scholarship
- Creative Research Methodologies
- A/r/tography
- Artistic Research
- Public Art and Pedagogy
- Museum Education
- International Art Education
- Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)
- Life Writing
- Social Fiction
- Stories as Research
- Autoethnography
- Autotheory
- History of Education
- Community Art Education
- Transdisciplinary Art Education
- Educational Theory and Philosophy
Biography
Professor, Critical Perspective in Arts-Based Educational Research
The University of British Columbia, 2008, PhD, Curriculum Studies (Art Education)
University of Victoria, 2002, MEd, Curriculum Studies (Adult Education)
The University of British Columbia, 1989, BA, Geography
Anita Sinner is Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. Her research focuses primarily on artwork scholarship, an umbrella term for the arts as research in the field of education that spans arts-based educational inquiry, visual art practice, a/r/tography, artistic practice, performative inquiry, and poetic inquiry, among many approaches. She publishes widely in art and education, from surveys of scholarship to case studies to pedagogic imaginaries of the post-post paradigm, adding to genealogies of thought that underpin art as research, and attending to both theory and practice. Her areas of interest include international art education, geographies of self-in-relation, historical perspectives, autotheory, life writing, collaborative online learning and community education. She continues to work extensively with stories as pedagogic pivots, with particular emphasis on artful inquiry in relation to curriculum studies and social and cultural issues in education.
Anita is the lead editor of the Artwork Scholarship book series (Intellect), with co-editor Dr. Rita Irwin. This series is designed in the spirit of a conversazione, to bring together transdisciplinary dialogues about the arts as research, and to share diverse practices and perspectives in an effort to advance and to foster capacity building for sustainable research futures. In addition, Anita is actively engaged in her art practice and exhibits in academic and community venues. She has secured funding to support her art, teaching and research, with a number of grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that have supported collaborative research with teams in Japan, Egypt, Colombia, Spain, Australia, Finland, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
She has served as the editor of the Canadian Review of Art Education, co-editor of the International Journal of Education through Art, and as an Insea World Councillor (2022-23), among related service. Before joining UBC, Anita was a professor of art education at Concordia University in Montreal for thirteen years, where her teaching was recognized with a Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award.
For more about Anita’s work, please visit her website: https://anitasinner.ca
Selected Publications
For more see http://anitasinner.ca
Recent Edited Books
Sinner, A., White, B., & Osler, P. (Eds.). (2024). Propositions for Museum Education: International Art Educators in Conversation. Intellect.
Sinner, A., White, B., & Osler, P. (Eds.). (2024). Art Education in Canadian Museums: Practices in Action. Intellect.
Irwin, R. L., Laszik L., Sinner, A., & Triggs, V. (Eds.). (2024). A/r/tography: Essential readings and conversations. Intellect.
Lin, C., Sinner, A., & Irwin, R. L. (Eds.). (2023). Transversalities: International perspectives on community art education. Intellect.
Garnet, D., & Sinner, A. (Eds.). (2022). Living histories: Global perspectives in Art Education. Intellect. https://www.intellectbooks.com/living-histories
Garnet, D., & Sinner, A. (Eds.). (2019). Art, culture, and pedagogy: Revisiting the work of F. Graeme Chalmers. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004390096
Irwin, R. L., Hasebe-Ludt, E., & Sinner, A. (Eds.). (2019). Storying the world: The contributions of Carl Leggo on language and poetry. Routledge. (routledge.com)
Sameshima, P., Sinner, A., & White, B. (Eds.). (2019). Ma: Materiality in teaching and learning. Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b14417
Sinner, A., Irwin, R. L., & Adams, J. (Eds.). (2019). Provoking the field: International perspectives on visual arts PhDs in education. Intellect. www.intellectbooks.com/provoking-the-field
Sinner, A., Irwin, R., & Jokela, T. (Eds.). (2018). Visually provoking: Dissertations in art education. University of Lapland Press / Open Access (now with Intellect). https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49432
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Osler, P., Sinner, A., & El Tannir, L. (2022). Intra-spective event-encounters in museums: A pedagogic practice among community art educators in training. International Journal of Art & Design Education. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12430
Sinner, A. (2021). Affective epiphanies: The aesthetic relation of stories in museum encounters. Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 6(2), 301-315. View of Affective Epiphanies (ualberta.ca)
Sinner, A. (2021). Walking with public art: Mapping the a-r-tographic impulse. Teaching Artist Journal, 19(1-2), 14-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/15411796.2021.1911600
Sinner, A. (2021). Speculative steps of story shoes: Object itineraries as sensual a-r-tography. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54(5), 596-605.https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1872019
Sinner, A., & Irwin, R. L. (2021). Activating a/r/tographic propositions: Walking-with art education. Visual Inquiry – Special Issue, 10(2), 257-260. https://doi.org/10.1386/vi_00050_1
Lachapelle, R., Zimmer, T., & Sinner, A. (2019). The professional training of museum educators in Canada. The Canadian Review of Art Education, 46(1), 101-112. https://doi.org/10.26443/crae.v46i1.64
Sinner, A. (2019). Contested latitudes: When is artwork scholarship? The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 38(3), 610-617. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12248
Chapters
Sinner, A., Nakamura, K., Pavlik, N., Li, C., Kameishi, N., & Wada, M. (2024). Hiroshima-Concordia: A transnational art education commons in action. In B. Andrews (Ed.), Arts Education: A global affair. Brill.
Sinner, A. (2021). Love in the time of Covid-19: Contemplating gifts, grace and gratitude of Carl Leggo as living with intellectual passion. In J. Yallop, A. Podolski & C. Shields (Eds.), Influences and inspirations in curriculum studies research and teaching reflections on the origins and legacy of contemporary scholarship (pp. 105-109).Routledge. Influences and Inspirations in Curriculum Studies Research and Teaching (routledge.com)
Sinner, A. (2020). Geographies of self-in-relation: Invocations of heartlands and hinterlands. In E. Lyle (Ed.), Identity landscapes: Contemplating place and the construction of self (pp. 59-68). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004425194_006
Sinner, A. (2018). Cultivando disposições investigativas: Uma revisão dos estudos a/r/tográficos [Cultivating researchful dispositions: A review of a/r/tographic scholarship]. In B. Dias, T. Fernandez, & R. Castro, (Eds.), Métodos Visuais & Cultura das Imagens [Visual Methods & Culture of Images]. Editora UnB, Brasília. (Article reprinted in Portuguese)
Guest Editor – Journal
Sinner, A., Nakamura, K., & Yazdanpanah, E. (2022).Transnational tomorrows today: Graduate student futures and imaginaries for art education, UNESCO Observatory for Multi-Disciplinary Research in the Arts, 8(1), ISSN 1835 – 2776.www.unescoejournal.com/volume-8-issue-1/
Invited Presentations
2023
Living Artfully. Co-keynote address with Dr. Rita Irwin, September 23, 2023. ARTFULNESS Conference, September 23-24, 2023, Opatija, Croatia.
2019
Artwork scholarship: The pedagogic turn to art as research. Keynote address, March 7, 2019. 1st International Artistic and Scientific Conference, March 7-9, 2019. University of Zagreb, Croatia. ACE_2019_CONFERENCE_PROGRAM.pdf (ufzg.hr)
2017
Community art education. Teacher Education: International Research Seminar, Hiroshima University, Japan, October 13, 2017.
Canadian perspectives on arts based research in the art education doctoral experience. International Seminar on Art Education, Tokyo Gakugei University, Japan, April 21, 2017. Co-presentation with Rita Irwin.
2015
Cultivating researchful dispositions: A review of a/r/tographic scholarship.Seminário Metodos Visuais & Culturas das Imagens. August 26-28, 2015. University of Brasilia, Brazil.
Research
2023-2025
Worlding higher education differently: Co-creating a technology-art-science commons – New Frontiers in Research Fund, Special Call (Anita Sinner, Nominated Principal Investigator; Cristian Zaelzer, Co-Principal Investigator; El Sheikh, Vargas, Osler, Co-Investigators; Nakamura, Lin, Mejia, Pérez, Collaborators).
2021-2026
Geographies of Artwork Scholarship: Investigating impact literacies as ecologies of sensible practice – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator; Rita L. Irwin, Co-Investigator).
2021-2025
Retracing, reimagining and reconciling our roots – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (Rita L. Irwin, Principal Investigator; Anita Sinner, Shannon Leddy, Valerie Triggs and Michele Sorensen, Co-Investigators).
Past Projects
2019-2022
Creation of the self: A museum-university collaboration – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (Boyd White, Principal Investigator; Anita Sinner and Richard Lachapelle, Co-Investigators).
2019-2023
Mapping A/r/tography: Transnational storytelling across historical and cultural routes of significance – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Development Grant (Rita L. Irwin, Principal Investigator; Anita Sinner, Jun Hu, Koichi Kasahara, Alexandra Lasczik, Ricardo Marin Viadel, Joaquin Roldan and Valerie Triggs, Co-Investigators).
2016-2022
The transversality hub: Towards a new mode of learning for community arts practice – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (Ching-Chiu Lin, Principal Investigator; Anita Sinner, Rita L. Irwin, and Peter Grimmett, Co-Investigators).
2016
Provoke: Visual art dissertations – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Connections Grant (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator).
2015-2018
The pedagogical turn to art as research: A comparative international study of art education – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Development Grant (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator; Rita L. Irwin, Jeff Adams, Timo Jokela, Joaquin Roldan and Ricardo Marin Viadel, Co-Investigators).
2014-2016
Material culture and teacher identity development – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant (Boyd White, Principal Investigator; Anita Sinner and Pauline Sameshima, Co-Investigators).
2012-2014
Community art education: An emergent model of innovative teaching and research in Canada – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insights Development Grant (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator; Rita L. Irwin, Jeff Adams, Timo Jokela, Ricardo Marin Viadel and Joaquin Roldan, Co-Investigators).
2012
Participatory arts-based research: An interdisciplinary community arts workshop – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Aid to Workshop Grant (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator).
2011-2014
Portrayals of teachers’ lives: Investigating teacher education through popular culture and digital media as arts education – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grant (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator; Carl Leggo and Erika Hasebe-Ludt, Co-Investigators).
2009-2011
Life writing in teacher education: Reshaping inquiry through creative nonfiction and new media applications – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (Anita Sinner, Principal Investigator). Nominated for the 2009 Post-doctoral Prize.