Cultural ecology, Sound, and C hinaVine: An Approach to Arts Education

In this essay, I articulate an approach to arts education focused on multimodal experience and creative process as important factors in interpretation and representation of arts in general, but more specifically sound and music. I argue that attention to multimodality of experience and creative process helps to situate art and artists in cultural ecologies, thereby encouraging holistic analysis of the interaction and interdependence between aesthetic, social, economic, political, and technological elements surrounding creative practice. Toward formulating a connection between multimodality and cultural ecologies, I will discuss a method for presentation and interpretation of field work materials that I call “mimetic inquiry.” I offer mimetic inquiry as a tool for educators and students alike that encourages engagement with processes and creative practices toward the pedagogical goal of integrating learning and making. The field research underlying my discussion occurred in 2009 and consisted of ethnographic interviews and observation with contemporary musicians in Beijing. This particular field trip was associated with ChinaVine, a transnational web-based project with the mission of educating English-speaking and reading children, youth, and adults about the cultural heritage of China.