PhD Oral Exam - David LeRue, Art Education

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

Urban environments in Canada are undergoing rapid changes amid a national housing crisis, economic re-alignments impacting industry and the value of real estate, changing work patterns after COVID lockdowns, and processes of renewal and gentrification. In this dissertation, I use landscape theory, community-engaged art education, and research-creation methodologies to ask how the creation of artworks can reveal insights into the social, political, and economic foundations of place, and how community artmaking can document how participants experience changes in place over time as a form of inductive research. This thesis conducts two concurrent projects that focus on Montréal’s Sud-Ouest borough, which has been subjected to substantial re-development over the past 50 years. The first is a personal research-creation project that takes up plein-air landscape painting to theorize the role of landscape painting in fieldwork and research creation methodology. The second was an eight-week community art class called Landscaping the City which used a method I developed called community-based research creation, which conjoins participant artmaking with oral history style interviews. An open call attracted 20 students from a variety of backgrounds, skill levels, and interests. The curriculum was designed to concurrently engage the past, present, and future of the city, while balancing the need for skill building with broader discussions about topics that included sound, planned developments, and the history of the neighborhood. The class culminated in final student projects on a subject of their choosing about the neighborhood, leading to projects of a variety of media and subjects. To carry out these projects, I embedded in a small community art school called the Pointe-Saint-Charles Art School, and in a grassroots building project called Bâtiment 7, which gave insight to how community members have self-organized to advocate for and meet the needs of citizens. By thinking these projects together, this thesis theorizes how multimodal engagement with the built environment can help to democratize forms of engagement, make visible contradictory demands and desires for space, and foster civic interest and participation in processes of placemaking.