Dr Geraldine Burke is an artist, researcher, and teacher-educator lecturing in visual and creative arts education at Monash University (Melbourne and Singapore). She is passionate about art-based educational research and how it can be employed to explore issues of our time. Her research engages with artistic practice, pedagogy and community projects. Her Master’s in Art and Design (by exhibition and exegesis) and her PhD (through an art-based photo book and exegesis) have led to an enduring interest in non-traditional research through creative genres. Geraldine is currently co-leader of the Art-Creativity-Education Faculty Research Group at Monash Faculty of Education and teaches creative art units in early childhood and primary education at Undergraduate and Master’s levels. This sees Geraldine include Art-Reach experiences with kindergarten/school children, pre-service teachers, seniors and cultural institutions as a means to build vibrant social and ecological connections through art.

As a researcher and PhD supervisor Geraldine privileges the intersection of material knowledge, socially engaged research practices, and image and text as a means to explore given topics.

Recent research projects embed socially engaged art practice as a means to explore and build creative agency and thriving communities. Working across intergenerational, educational and community contexts this work engages with local and place-based knowledge through immersive art, research and teaching. Currently, Geraldine is involved in an international study that aims to de-westernise art education, while developing sustainable practices and climate actions through art education within local contexts.

ART-REACH: Making intergenerational connections through the arts

Geraldine is a keen advocate for ART-REACH as a means to build intergenerational connections through the arts. ART-REACH enables Monash Faculty of Education to build connections with community through creative inquiry. Through ART-REACH our pre-service teachers (Primary and Early Childhood) join with children from local Schools and Early Learning Centres, and/or local seniors, in order to build innovative art/s experiences that share generational knowledge on issues and topics that matter. 

• Reimagining art education through intergenerational learning
• Socially engaged arts-based research as a tool for wellbeing
• Activating art education for ecological awareness and climate action
• Fostering inclusive futures for arts-based education
• A/r/tography and the global South
• Arts-based educational research (ABER), immersive art pedagogy, narrative inquiry
• Art in early childhood, primary and community contexts
• Art-Reach: Creative connections through the arts

• EDF1063: Creative Connections: Visual Arts (Peninsula) Chief Examiner/Unit Coordinator/Lecturer
• EDF3181: Art, Community and Environment (Singapore/Online) Chief Examiner/Unit Coordinator/Lecturer
• EDF5824: Creative Childhoods and Learning (Clayton) Chief Examiner/Unit Coordinator/Lecturer
• EDF5048: Creative encounters with the Arts and Languages (Peninsula/Online) Chief Examiner/Unit Coordinator/Lecturer
• EDF5856: Primary Arts (Peninsula) Chief Examiner/Unit Coordinator/Lecturer

I am interested to supervise PhD students who engage with arts-based educational research through a/r/tography or socially engaged, participatory projects.