This article discusses some implications of working supportively with art and design students who manage mental health conditions in a postgraduate environment in a New Zealand University. The paper begins with a discussion of contesting research that considers relationships between highly creative thinkers and certain mental health conditions. It…

The debate over the design thesis is often entangled in the dialectics of the practical and the theoretical. Whether the argument is waged and weighted in favour of a practical emphasis or a theoretical emphasis, or more insidious, a judicious balance between the two, what is inevitably assumed in the debate is the possibility of drawing and/or…

This article draws on case studies undertaken in postgraduate research at AUT University, Auckland. It seeks to address a number of issues related to heuristic inquiries employed by graphic design students who use autobiographical approaches when developing research-based theses. For this type of thesis, heuristics as a system of inquiry may…

The task of writing about the process of making and contextualising art can be overwhelming for some graduate students. While the challenge may be due in part to limited time and attention to the practice of writing, in a practice-based arts thesis there is a deeper issue: how the visual and written components are attended to in a manner that…