Examining the Making and Movement of Speculative “Withness” in Young Children’s A/r/tographic Collage

Abstract

Mobilizing a/r/tographic inquiry with young children, this article focuses on a series of research-creation events to examine the making and movement of speculative “withness” inherent in creative production. Thinking with theories of posthumanism and visual studies, it diffractively reads across young children’s making to refashion Szarkowski’s elements of photography (the thing, the detail, the frame, time, and vantage point) as a/r/tographic renderings of the relational-aesthetic. Seeking to expand the sentient possibilities of ‘seeing’ and ‘knowing’ with young children, a series of provocations are presented to question the role of the image in young children’s world making.