'Deep Curiosity' and the ethics of making artwork - a new online pedagogic tool: Justine Interactive

Abstract

At screenings of a recent short film called "Justine", audiences were typically curious about the subject’s disability, asking 'what's wrong with her'? Some were initially frustrated by the film's refusal to name Justine's condition. But the film is wary of the damage that labelling another can do - a label that can become a cage of perception from which she may never escape. The film resists this 'natural curiosity' of a general audience in another's physical condition, aiming instead to invite a deeper curiosity about who Justine is beyond reflex stereotypes that would medicalise her. Instead "Justine" explores points of connection with her through quieter documentary observation.

Making this film raises questions about the ethics of enquiry, such as: what are the methodologies of channeling curiosity about another into an “ethically-informed” perception? Does it work? If so, how? When and how should curiosity be tutored by caution? Should ethical questions be explored more fully in our curricula?

Taking a documentary example, this workshop surfaces questions of research ethics and crucially, now that the film is finished, asks how to communicate the research ethics of this and similar approaches to students and colleagues?

Using investment from a UAL Teaching Scholarship Fund the presenters are building a free pedagogic tool to develop research ethics in the curriculum. The workshop explores a work in progress - inviting participants to take a hand in its development and thus examine how disciplinary, practice-based and pedagogic research is being used to develop the new teaching tool: "Justine Interactive" (252 words)