I am a professor of fine arts pedagogy at The Norwegian Film School in Lillehammer, Norway; now part of the University of Inland Norway (INN). I came to NFS in 2009, after having worked, among other places, at the Canadian Film Centre and Vancouver Film School, and with an extensive background from film and theatre in Canada. My primary work is with pedagogic development and research.
I played a key role in the development of the 2016 NFS application to achieve a Centre for Excellence in Education, and was named the Head of the Centre, CEFIMA, for the duration of the Centre: 2017-2022. I’ve also functioned as interim Dean of the Norwegian Film School, from December 2016 through July, 2017 and was appointed Vice Dean for both education and artistic research for the period 2018-2022.
My research interest is fine arts pedagogy and educational philosophy, with particular emphasis on film schools. Here I investigate the connections between practical experience, reflection, and development and learning in both the individual and in a social setting where collaboration in artistic processes are central. I’m also fascinated by the interplay between art and technology in both education and artistic research, and am involved in INNs contribution to the National Centre for AI, MishMash – Centre for AI and Creativity (2026-2031).
I was privileged enough to be granted a research term for the fall of 2025, and spent it primarily investigating the philosophical and theoretical foundations of film school pedagogy. At NFS, like many film schools, the teaching staff come from filmmaking practice as opposed to more traditional academic routes. As a result, many film schools have based their education on a master-apprentice model, but alternate models have also been applied over the past 20+ years. These alternate models are often grounded in experiential and embodied learning, where the students are expected to learn through their own trial and error, under the guidance of their teachers.
What has been missing a framework for discussing how these teaching models work, especially in a collaborative environment where students of differing backgrounds, expertise, and experience learn together and from each other through practice-based workshops. My project involves providing film school teachers a theoretical framework for discussing and evolving their teaching practice.
The starting points for my investigations are two-fold: the experiential theories of learning as first described by John Dewey and later elaborated by Paolo Friere, bell hooks, David Kolb and Maxine Greene, and the social-constructivist theories first developed by Lev Vygotsky and further developed by Jerome Bruner. Of key importance to fine arts pedagogy, and pedagogy in general, is understanding how we interact with and interpret the world, and this necessitates exploring phenomenological explanations of our senses as well as theories of cognition, especially through the various approaches grouped under the 4E (embodied, enactive, extended, embedded) cognition umbrella.