Abstract
This study concentrates on an art project in a teacher training program where dance art students and student teachers together develop an art event that is implemented in the school as part of the student teacher’s practice, through The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS).
In the design of the art event, the dance art students contributed a segment from another dance production, which served as artistic input in the event. The student teachers contributed with specialised knowledge about the pupils, the curriculum, teaching planning and classroom management. The goal of the art event itself was to create an aesthetic and interactive experience for the pupils.
Within the theoretical framework of «the third space», we explore what the students negotiate about in the development of the art event, and how these negotiations are expressed through three qualitative paint-interviews.
We describe our empirical material and use art-based methods to analyze this. Through the analyses, we find that the students negotiate feelings, use of time and roles in relation to the artistic expression and the pupil, in the development of the art event. We discuss these negotiations against the significance of «the third space» and the development of competence through «mutual transformation». What the students negotiate about is visualized to identify the negotiation spaces within each individual student, within the subject areas and between the students’ subject areas. We conclude with some reflections on art-based research methods and the need to practice applying them, as well as the potential for nuanced knowledge production as a creative process.