Arts-based practices, although familiar in some areas of educational research have the capacity to surprise and to shock: they hold promise but also pose risks. In this essay we introduce arts-based research practices and in particular cut-up and collage. We invite readers to reflect on our experiences of arts-based educational research activities with a group of academic colleagues. We describe what we did, what went wrong, what went right and what we learned.

Living Viral Tattoos (2008) is a research-creation project featuring the development of sculptures made in vitro. The creation of tattoos in the form of blue ‘bruises’ on pig skin and donated human skin was made using retroviruses, cell and tissue culture and immunohistochemical stains. This technical paper presents the protocols created and materials used in the project with the intention of contributing to an open source model for the development of wetware and biological art processes.

The aim of this research project was to deepen our understanding of the professional development of postgraduates who teach (tutors). Using arts-based methods, we asked postgraduate tutors and senior staff how they saw tutors’ roles and development needs. Based on our research outcomes, we found that both postgraduate tutors and senior staff were concerned in their different ways about a lack of community, the administrative burden on tutors, the importance of enjoyment, how tutoring should be recognised and valued, and the question of training versus development. We make use of a framework borrowed from gerontological nursing for thinking about and addressing these issues in practice. Note: In this paper, ‘tutor’ refers to the part-time, adjunct, assistant, sessional or casual staff who make a significant contribution to small and large-group teaching, assessment and feedback in higher education. We are particularly concerned here with postgraduates who teach; ‘senior staff’ refers to a variety of colleagues who have some responsibility for supporting tutor development, including course organisers, senior tutors and administrative staff.