Put the arts at the heart of academic life.
The Artist✼Academic Project celebrates the many places and spaces where arts-inspired ways of making, knowing, and being infuse academic research, teaching, and leadership. Whether you identify as an artist, an academic, neither, or both, you'll find resources here to help you move into, between, and beyond.
We define an Artist✼Academic as:
But to be honest, we're not all that interested in definitions. By replacing the linear hyphen in Artist-Academic with a multidirectional asterisk, we aim to fire up your imagination with a burst of astral energy and intellectual risk.
Artist✼Academics break down disciplinary boundaries and inspire their colleagues and students to work, think, and live in more creative and collaborative ways. Still not convinced? Read about two very different research projects – a scholarly literature review and a multimodal artistic inquiry – that address in very different ways the question of why the arts matter in higher education.
Anyone! If you're an artist who works in higher education or a researcher, teacher, or tertiary student who embeds arts-based thinking in your academic work, you are already an Artist✼Academic – but you may feel that this affirmational label couldn't possibly apply to you, because you're "not a real artist" and/or "not really an academic." Meet some of the (initially skeptical) Artist✼Academics who contributed to this website, even in the face of self-doubt and single, double, or even triple imposter syndrome.
Browse our collection of Artist✼Academic case studies from around the world, then take the plunge and start incorporating arts-inspired practices into your own research, teaching, and leadership. You'll be amazed by the results!
Visit us at the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation and be inspired by the wide array of arts-based projects led by members and associates of our centre.
