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a diagrammatic disturbance of the CCEA (NI) Statutory Requirements for Art and Design at Key Stage 3

Curriculum Shapes is a project by Ruth Annett which aims to explore the spaces we enact through creative curricula. It performs an analysis of form and text using one specific curriculum document, the Statutory Requirements for Art and Design at Key Stage 3, as field of enquiry and method-making. This document is a constituent part of the CCEA curriculum Key Stage 3 curriculum for Northern Ireland, published in 2007. In 2021 this continues to be the statutory framework for educating all students in the subject of Art and Design. Key Stage 3 is the final phase of compulsory art and design education before progression to optional GCSE or A level study. This curriculum was selected as a site of enquiry as it is both small (864 words) and vast, singular and multiple.

The Curriculum Shapes diagram is a remainder of process and a tracing of analytical movements. It has formed through methods of attention and performative readings of the curriculum text; strategies for introducing and mapping complexity in singularies in order to understand the forms orderings and multiple topologies nested in curricula [1]. The result creates strange forms, absences, inconsistencies and incompleteness. Categorisation comes and goes as the urge to rationalise, order and standardise is examined. The diagram is made and remade by all who view it; the view is intentionally obscured by scale and the limitations of the viewing frame and the movements of the cursor are captured as observation tracings. [2]

This diagram sits alongside a thesis entitled 'Curriculum Shapes: An exploration of diagrammatic disturbance and method assemblage for performing complexity in creative curricula'. Diagram and thesis have been created symbiotically; each form create analytical movements which evolve the composition of the other.

[1] Learning from the work of John Law and Annemarie Mol and Adelheid Mers:
Law, J. (2004) After method: mess in social science research Routledge, London;
Mol, A. & Law, J. [ed.] (2002) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices Durham N.C.: Duke University Press;
Mers, A. (2021) Performative Topologies – small gestures from within, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/14794713.2021.1934635
[2] This technique has been inspired by the work of Duarte Carrilho da Graça & Philipp Sokolov, and assisted by Dr. Tomáš Sixta.

Ruth Annett is a writer, researcher and educator. She graduated with first class honours in Sculpture from UAL, Camberwell College of Arts and an MA in Art and Contemporary World (Visual Cultures) from NCAD Dublin. Her research and writing explore unseen topologies of creative education and the radical potential of creative knowledge practices. She currently works in the UK Higher Education sector as an Employability Practitioner, supporting others as they navigate the complex worlds of creative practice.