ABSTRACT
Our aim with this chapter is to explore conceptualizations of voice and agency and to advance a relational conceptualization of voice in/through which children are inextricably implicated and key beneficiaries. To ground and illustrate the exploration, we revisited data from a multisite exploratory case study of intergenerational art programs for seniors and pre-school aged children. We adopted a voice-as-events approach that focused on a digital art portfolio from one of the intergenerational programs. This approach allowed us to interrogate the people and things that came into relation to produce the expressions of the portfolio and with what effects. Findings include that the portfolio was a voice-as-event constituted of myriad intra-actions between entities such as modes, media, content related to in-class and outside-of-class ideas and memories, images echoed from other art class participants’ texts, and manifestations of participants’ facility with modes and media. Expressions took on force as they influenced other artworks, became enmeshed in other narratives, and provoked affective responses, among other immediate or short-term effects. Considering agency in/through the entanglements of the portfolio creates innovative possibilities for studying voice that defy the notion of voice as an autonomous, human-centric entity and when viewed from an intergenerational context, disrupts conventional notions of development.
