The article explores how intentional instability may be defined as a quality of a learning environment, thus aiming to contribute to the discussion concerning the complex question of what constitutes a creative learning environment. The study uses interviews and observations from three different art academies’ learning environments as a point of departure. Five variations of intentional instability are discerned and discussed, and intentional instability defined as follows: By intentionally twisting what we experience as familiar a bit, thus adding some instability, we are forced to shift positions and experience the familiar in new ways, and it is in this gap created in the discrepancy between balance and off balance that new insights may be articulated.

The article reports the results of an empirical investigation into movement viewed as a quality of an aesthetic working process. Any process presupposes movement - there is no process if one stands still. At times, movement is deliberately provoked by artists wanting to view their work from a different perspective. This was the approach applied in the first-year course of an art teacher’s program in Sweden, where movement was provoked through shifts of media (cardboard, sketching, Minecraft) during a four-week working process. The assignment was to work with a 3D shape through these media. The students' process journals (containing writings and photography) constitute the material for the study. The results are visualized on an individual level as movement patterns and five characteristic patterns are discerned. Movement within and between media are visualized collectively, showing not only how media shifts stimulate movement but also how the students themselves can provoke movement within a medium. Sketching shows the most movement, typically triggered by the students themselves when they get bored by the repetitiveness of multiple sketching. Minecraft encourages the least amount of movement, which is discussed in relation to preconceptions embedded in the software design. The study relates to a phenomenographic approach.

Med utgångspunkt i en analys av kursplaner för svenskämnet inom grundlärarprogrammet vid fyra svenska lärosäten syftar denna artikel till att belysa skillnader i förhållningssätt till multimodalt meningsskapande samt hur dessa ramar in studenternas möjligheter till multimodalt meningsskapande. Analysen visar på tre huvuddrag i förhållningssättet till multimodalitet: som digitalitet, som stöd för annat lärande och som kunskapande i sin egen rätt. Spänningar mellan dessa tre förhållningssätt utforskas vidare och visar att processen fokuseras då multimodalitet ses som kunskapande i sin egen rätt medan representationen, i form av en produkt, blir det som hamnar i fokus utifrån de andra förhållningssätten. Ett holistiskt synsätt på kvalitativa aspekter av multimodalitet möjliggörs när meningsskapande processen och relationella aspekter fokuseras.

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The empirical study analyses students' use of studio conversations within the context of a Master of Fine Arts programme in visual arts in Sweden, showing how the students intentionally use the interaction in the studio conversations to access alternative options, to find out how others interpret their work, and to situate themselves in the professional art world. The study explores different ways the students use the studio conversations, and what qualities they thereby develop. A phenomenographic approach is used, and interviews with a group of students form the empirical base. The students' power of initiative is seen as central among the qualities developed in these conversations. Meta-cognitive skills and interaction are additional vital qualities that are developed in intimate relation to, and partially dependent on, the quality of students' initiative.