Squiggle Game, from a Psychotherapy to an Educational Creativity Method. Drawing and Designing Together

Abstract

AbstractThe paper presents an experiment with a squiggle game in a design class: a joint drawing activity. The squiggle game, which comes from psychoanalysis, has been adapted to a teaching‐learning situation in order to observe how graphic design practices and skills develop through creativity. The hypothesis is that the game impacts the training of participants, including teachers, by developing their creativity through the co‐construction that occurs between them. A qualitative methodology based on activity theory has been set up, consisting of two phases of experimentation in a vocational training class in France. The results are based on a semiotic and cognitive analysis of the drawing activity through its components and the participants' discourse about their drawings during self‐confrontations. The discussion creates a dialogue between several research paradigms in educational sciences, psychology, and psychoanalysis within artistic disciplines. It leads to the identification of four creativity methods that impact the teaching‐learning processes generated by the squiggle game: the game of abstract random drawing in pairs; the figurative patterns sought through combinations of strokes (complementation); opposition between very strong former and current routines of drawing or behaviours; and rebounding from the other's prompts towards new dynamics.