Picturing Three Decades of Visual Arts‑Based Self‑Study Research

This paper maps three decades of visual arts-based self-study at the Self‑Study of Teacher Education Practices (S‑STEP) Castle Conference (1996–2023). Self-study research invites educators to explore identity, practice, and relationships to enhance their professional learning and growth. Visual arts-based approaches to self-study extend ways of creating, representing, and sharing knowledge. Drawing on literature showing how arts-based research expands reflexivity and representation, we explored how visual modes operate as educative processes that support growth, transformation, and artistic and aesthetic engagement. We reviewed all conference proceedings and identified 31 papers that demonstrated artistic intent using visual forms. Through textual and visual crystallisation and dialogic interpretation, we analysed the types of visual art employed, researchers’ motivations, and the impacts described. Rich pictures enabled us to distil patterns across the archive. Castle Conference researchers used visual methods to see differently, to shake up practice, to engage emotions, and to create symbolic or tangible artefacts of learning. Visual modes supported meditative reflection, intuitive awareness, nonlinear understanding, and playful encounters. Impacts included heightened perception, recognising unseen aspects of practice, emotional insight, and relational awareness. Metaphors of growth, connection, and change illuminated how the visual arts opened new ways of understanding complexity and the unfinished nature of inquiry. This mapping highlights a sustained lineage of visual arts within the Castle community and shows how artistically educative experiences continue to shape knowledge, dialogue, and inventiveness. For readers beyond S-STEP, this paper offers a window into the Castle’s creative legacy and invites consideration of the potential of the visual arts in their own work.