Collaging the virtual: Exploring gender materialisations in the artwork of pre-teen children

Abstract

This article draws on a co-productive, arts-based study, in Northern Finland, of 40 children from 10 to 11 years of age. Applying Gilles Deleuze’s idea of the virtual, the author maps the journey of the children’s creative activities, as developed through a series of workshops over one academic year. This article demonstrates how repetitive crafting and photographing can accelerate an actualisation of expansive ideas of gender and ‘self-hood’, ideas emerging in manners that disrupt rigid expectations of girlhood and boyhood.