Textmaking and Evidence of arts practice

was in my mind during the Arts Award moderators standardisation conference over the last couple of days. It's really a similar thing, just at a different level of 'education', that practice based researchers face (how to evidence practice in thesis submissions) to that which the Arts Award proactively encourages young people to engage with (creative portfolios). The portfolio needs to demonstrate specific elements of the tasks requested, in an appropriate manner relevant to the individual - their level of skills and experience, their interests and chosen direction - and appropriate levels of the assessed criteria - planning and review, artform knowledge, creativity, communication. Yet when a portfolio really comes alive it carries an integration of creativity and communication, art-form expressed which involves the knowledge, planning etc. in the artefact as in the work documented. A beautiful example I moderated recently was a dancer's portfolio box that opened out into a series of collaged pages with found materials becoming part of the visual design and forming pouches to pull out paper scrolls with feedback comments, open to find notes of the process, thoroughly engaging and interactive, conveying the enthusiasm committment and creative maturity of this young person (pre-gcse agegroup).

I recall a talk last year by Daria Loi at the Experimental Objects workshop at Lancaster University and my pleasure in seeing the form in which Daria presented her thesis: an identical series of suitcases (to get around issues of archiving copies of the text) which encourage the reader to explore.

Thinking back to my art and design foundation at Trowbridge College (1995-6); our written submission was marked in two sections - one for the words used and what they had to say on our research topic - the other for the medium in which these words were presented which included artist book construction, textiles and sculptural artefacts but was deemed to support, complement and enhance (not detract from) the reading and comprehension of the text.

My piece was about land artists including Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy and David Nash, with typed essay (lovely type-writer!) on sheets of thick cartridge paper interspersed with handwritten poetic references on tissue paper, the leaves bound with wool and a driftwood spine. Another that stays clearly in mind was a Klimt pyramid - the artefact and design fixes more than the text as intrigueing information in my memory.

During the chat of the breaks I told someone else, for the first time, of my ambition (conceived last summer) for the third and ultimate element of my thesis submission, a merging of text and artefact.

For the final session of the Arts Award conference I joined an interesting group debate on whether the award could or should go partially or fully online.

The integrity and wonderful ethos of the Arts Award has engaged me and other people I know from the moment of first encounter. Arts Award celebrated it's 5th birthday last autumn, and has awarded 40 000 awards to date. I joined as hub manager for Wiltshire (with WYAP and the Youth Development service) in the ACE pilot, with the chance to facilitate young people's genuine influence on the direction of the award before it was launched nationally. Creativity and openness, married with high quality participation and individual achievement, runs through Arts Award.

Would the friendly knowledgable support and guidance be possible in a fully online experience? What would be lost and what would be gained? If a young person creates an interactive (physical) box of artefacts, do they then need to develop the skills (and access the tools) to create an online version of that portfolio - or is this mediation overkill that could jeopardise the very nature of creativity and communication and personal interaction that the arts sustain?

As digital copies of the thesis become a standard requirement for PhD submission, this is something we will all have to address.