Creative ecologies in education : teaching relationships within sustained school-based artists-in-residence projects

…art is like a muscle – it needs exercise to be strong (Student) If, as this student says, art is a muscle, a living organism that requires exercise to build strength, then we propose that sustained artist-in-residence projects offer unique opportunities for living arts practice and creative ecologies to strengthen the school community. In this era of creative learning, partnerships between arts industry and schools that stretch beyond the short term open up new possibilities for organic and responsive educational ecosystems, which can transform people, practice and pedagogies whilst being responsive to the place of the local school. The features of a creative school ecology that develop engagement, artistic excellence and imagination emerged from a three-year funded research study of an arts education project called the Fresh AIR Initiative . Funded by the Australia Council and managed by Arts NSW (the State’s arts agency), the initiative spanned three different projects over three years in six government schools involving multiple art forms, artists, teachers and students in primary and secondary schools. We examine how the impact of relationships between artists, teachers and students shape schools through a reciprocity of arts practice to develop a creative ecology.