Research-Creation and Transformative Pedagogy in the DE-FORMADORES Interdisciplinary Arts Education Laboratory: A Systematization of Experiences from Cali, Colombia (2020–2024)

Arts education in Latin America faces persistent challenges in legitimizing research-creation as a pedagogical and epistemological paradigm. The DE-FORMADORES laboratory, developed in Cali, Colombia (2020–2024), is an interdisciplinary space integrating visual arts, dance, theater, and music through research-creation processes. A qualitative case study design was adopted, drawing on participant observation, field journals, semi-structured interviews, audiovisual analysis, and socialization forums conducted over ten semesters (2020-1 to 2024-2). Data were analyzed following a systematization-of-experiences approach, through collective, dialogue-based interpretation among the coordinating team and validation of the resulting interpretations with participants during socialization forums. Ten interdisciplinary artistic projects were produced involving over one hundred participants from three universities and community sectors. Key outcomes include the consolidation of a four-phase emergent creative-pedagogical process (exploration, composition, staging, and socialization), the development of meaningful and intrinsically motivated learning, territory-based pedagogy in non-conventional public spaces, and horizontal co-creation between teachers, students, and community leaders. DE-FORMADORES provides evidence, within this case, that research-creation offers a promising methodological alternative for arts education, generating significant learning, fostering social transformation, and suggesting a model of educational innovation with potential for adaptation to other contexts. Limitations include the single-case scope and the absence of quantitative outcome measures, opening avenues for future comparative research.