This paper introduces the concept of ‘affirmative iterations’ as an approach that integrates the realms of educational practices and participatory research. Drawing inspiration from action research’s iterative nature, researcher-practitioners engage in a series of cyclical-sequential interventions (Casey & Coghlan, 2021) that are both educational and research-based. Additionally, we draw on affect theory’s affirmative stance in performing critique (Staunes 2016). Each educational iteration (i.e. lesson/workshop/seminar) is critically engaged with in an affirmative way, through acritical and careful sensibility (Gunnarsson 2018; 2022), building on what works andhow the situated practice can be developed (cf. Wessels 2022). In this way, affirmative iterations offer a productive framework for planning and executing educational practices through an organic evolution while simultaneously researching these practices.This paper explores how affirmative iterations can deepen our understanding of the participatory aspects in three distinct educational practices. The first case study delves into the planning and execution of a series of playful art education ‘walk-shops’. In the second case, ‘dendro educational seminars’ are organized, exploring how craft teachers can develop their approach to wood as a material. The third example highlights a collaborative teaching unit in creative dance in physical education teacher education (Engdahl et al. 2022).These examples demonstrate how each workshop, seminar, or lesson in the series naturally evolves from its predecessor. Researcher-educators collaborate closely with participants, fostering a shared sense of agency and collaboration. This approach aligns with the principles of co-creation and participatory research, enabling practitioners to adapt and innovate in response to the specific needs of the community or participants.

How can humans transcend their human perceptions and explore more-than-human experiences in arts education events? This question was explored in an iterative process of playful arts-based workshops rooted in posthumanism. Two workshops were organized as ‘walk-shops’ in the local environment and involved various approaches to engage with more-than-human experiences. Each walk-shop evolved from an affirmative response to a previous workshop experience. The paper discusses how these playful continuations can fuel radical imagination and transformation. We argue that workshops can develop iteratively when one actively pays attention to the situated possibilities within the context of the arts education event.

jag vet hur folkhemmet luktar är ett interdisciplinärt projekt som visar på en mer komplex bild av det svenska folkhemmet än den idealisering av folkhemmet som i samtidens politiska klimat drivs av framförallt extremhögern med det populistiska och rasistiska Sverigedemokraterna (SD) i spetsen. Med utgångspunkten i konstnärens egen ”folkhemsmarinerade” kropp skisseras i expositionen noderna varifrån folkhemmet vecklade ut sig och hur de skapade förutsättningar för vissa att känna sig hemma medan andra uteslöts. I kartläggningen används fotografisk dokumentation, framskrivna minnesbilder från barndomen och ett samtal med fadern. Projektet undersöker hur folkhemideologin implementerades genom såväl en språklig som en rumslig och materiell estetik. De textuella minnesbilderna kontextualiseras genom en fotnotsapparatur som i expositionen visas i pop-up fönster och fungerar som en kommenterande och associerande parallelltext till minnesberättelserna.

jag vet hur folkhemmet luktar is an interdisciplinary project that attempts to show a more complex picture of the Swedish folkhem (“people’s home” – a term used to describe the vision of a better life for all by Swedish social democracy). The project is a response to the romanticised and idealised image of the folkhem which, in the current political climate, is mainly propagated by the far right with the populist and racist Swedish Democrats (SD) at the forefront. Using the artists own “folkhem-marinated” body as a point of departure, the exposition sketches the nodes from which the folkhem unfolded and how that created the preconditions for certain people to feel at home while others were excluded. In mapping the “folkhem nodes” photographic documentation, notes of childhood memories and a conversation with the father is used. The project investigates how the folkhem ideology was implemented through a linguistic as well as a spatial and material aesthetics. The textual memories are contextualized through a system of footnotes, that in the exposition are shown in pop-up windows and act as a commenting and associative parallel text to the memory narratives.

A conceptual collaborative project carried out in two months (from idea to finalised book), August–September 2015, and first presented at the photography book fair Fotobok GBG 15.

The starting point for the book is a single photograph – to which around thirty different writers, poets, journalists, photographers and artists were invited to contribute their own written or visual interpretetion/comment. Those who accepted recieved an e-mail with the photo and an instruction not to spread it.