What the mountain makes possible for our becoming as arts-based researchers

Abstract

Sharing an interest in arts-based research, this article explores the role of the mountain in shaping the authors’ academic relationship, growing from that between a PhD supervisor and supervisee into South African women exploring a sense of place, self, and becoming in academia. After Venter completed her PhD, they continued their collaboration through artmaking and writing. This article was inspired by the marked presence of mountains recognised in their work and personal lives: for Müller, Formosa Mountain in Tsitsikama and for Venter, Mont-Aux-Sources in the Drakensberg. Drawing on Sarmiento's reports about mountains, they interweave visuals to their text and comment on tangible and intangible experiences shared with these landscapes. The visuals they share are their arts-based responses exploring the actual and virtual presence of the mountain in their past, current and future work. From a post qualitative perspective, they ask: what does the mountain make possible? Müller’s journey involves inquiry into memories and stories, and amid migration and academic mobility, the mountain becomes a metaphor for home. Venter’s artmaking deepened her awareness of aesthetic experience and strengthened her connection to the mountain, questioning traditional education. Curious to think beside Janz and learn alongside Elizabeth St. Pierre, they refuse predetermined methodology and here they delve into a complex interplay and a dynamism that they sense between actual and virtual experiences shared with one another and with mountains.