Dr Laura Trafi-Prats

Trafí-Prats Portrait

Dr Laura Trafi-Prats

Reader

CYES - School of Education

My profile

Biography

I am a Reader specializing in art and creative education with a focus on the spatial experiences of urban young people. My research employs digital sensory methods—such as video, LiDAR, air and heat sensors, and voice recordings—alongside artistic practices like sketching, walking, and photography. These tools facilitate playful and immersive explorations of how young people interact with the built environment. I am particularly interested in how collaborative research practices can foster care and responsibility for the environment, addressing complex spatial issues that are central to young people’s lives in cities.

My work aims to cultivate creative research spaces where young people can actively participate in educational and socio-technical debates—debates that often exclude their perspectives. By doing so, I strive to make these discussions more inclusive, participatory, and attuned to the realities of vulnerable youth.

Throughout my projects, I have collaborated with diverse groups of young people in various cities on topics such as re-imagining school spaces, exploring the neighborhood mobilities of migrant youth, and documenting key urban spaces through video. Other projects include thirteen-year-olds creating science fiction video stories in a school garden and university students of color sensing erased spaces and histories on their campuses.

I am committed to exploring multiple formats of dissemination to engage the public with the richness of young people’s perspectives, collective voices, and calls for action. This includes alternative publication formats, video, and exhibitions. My research addresses varied issues, including the need for more flexible and imaginative school spaces, the right to dwell in public spaces without being perceived as a problem, the freedom to move without constant supervision, and the desire for gentler, greener, and calmer environments as a counterpoint to intense spaces like schools.

Interests and expertise

My areas of expertise include art in education, art and design ethnographies, collaborative methods with teens and young people, digital-sensory methods, and speculative mapping. I am also deeply interested in research informed by new materialisms and science and technology studies, with a particular emphasis on cosmopolitics, pluriverses, and Gaia.

I welcome expressions of interest from prospective doctoral students.

Get in touch

0161 247 5260
Brooks Building

Projects

I have recently completed the ESRC project: Mapping spatial practices and social distancing in smart schools: Sensory and digital methods (ES/V0006436/1). A summary of the project can be read in here.

Previous research projects include:

AWARDED RESEARCH GRANTS AS PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

2020-2021  Sensing poetics of black space: A research creation project of spatial and environmental exploration of the black outdoors with youth, artists and researchers in Tallahassee. Research Development Fund 2019/20. Manchester Metropolitan University. PI: Laura Trafí-Prats. Research Mentor: Liz de Freitas. Funding: £4.586

2010-2014   Advancing reading and math through the arts. .US. Department of Education, Development and dissemination grant program. Co-Pi: Cindy Walker, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Funding:  $126.481

2008-2009 A narrative study of elementary children’s aesthetic perspectives of urban environment and change. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Graduate School, Graduate School Research Awards. Co-PIs: Jeanne Nemeth, Ph.D. and Sue Pezanoski Browne, K-5 art specialist. Funding: $10.000.

AWARDED RESEARCH GRANTS AS CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

2021-2022 Mapping spatial practices and social distancing in smart schools: Sensory and digital ethnographic methods - ESRC Research Methods Development Grants (2020) Ref: ES/V006436/1 | January 1st 2021-May 31st 2022 – PI Elizabeth de Freitas, MMU, Co-PIs: Nils Jaeger, University of Nottingham, Albena Yaneva, University of Manchester, Laura Trafí-Prats, MMU. Funding: £199.048.96.

2018-2019  Local Alternatives: Sensing, thinking, and making with young people in the Anthropocene. £5000. MMU Research Accelerator Grant (Research and Knowledge Exchange). PI

2010-2011 Teaching and learning visual critical literacies with urban youth.. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Graduate School, Research Growth Initiative (RGI)-2010. PI:  Kimberly Cosier, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Funding: $49.440.

2004-2005 Educació artística, aprenentatges i infància. Una recerca sobre la comprensió crítica i la pràctica de l’art als museus i les escoles. (Art education, learning and childhood: A study on critical understanding and art practice in museums and schools). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, PNL2004-43 PI:  Montserrat Rifà, Ph.D., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Funding: €10.000

2003-2006 El papel de la escuela primaria en la construcción de la subjetividad. (The role of primary school in the construction of subjectivity). MEC (Spanish Ministry of Education and Science), BSO2003-06157. PI:  Fernando Hernández, Ph.D., University of Barcelona

1996-2000  Conocimiento base y estrategias de comprensión del hecho artístico. Una investigación sobre la comprensión del conocimiento artístico representado en soporte multimedia. (Art’s knowledge-base and strategies of understanding: A study on art knowledge and its representation in multimedia platforms). MEC (Spanish Ministry of Education and Science), CICYT 595-0204. PI:  Fernando Hernández, Ph.D., University of Barcelona.

SPECIALIST COLLABORATION IN RESEARCH GRANTS

2014-2016  Arts Eco. Margaret Cargill Foundation. PI: Kim Cosier. https://uwm.edu/arts/arts-eco/. Funding: $545,300

Contributions: I designed and taught the curriculum of the Innovative Teachers’ Institute at Lynden Sculpture Garden directed to foster through a 4-year plan a collaborative ecology between pre-service, in-service teachers, K-12 art specialists and museum educators around the development of art-nature curriculum in partnership with the Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee).

Teaching

I teach at the postgraduate level with an emphasis on theory, methodology and research design. 

I welcome contact from prospective doctoral students who have an interest in the following areas:

  • Art-based approaches to the research of children and young people spatial relations with a focus on the lived experience of urban space.

  • Interdisciplinary collaborations across education, the arts and visual cultures

  • Cultural partnerships involving the participation of young people in cultural organisations

  • Non-representational, eco-affective, digital-ethnographic research methods

Research outputs

I HAVE RECENTLY COMPLETED THIS UKRI FUNDED RESEARCH PROJECT:

 Mapping spatial practices and social distancing in smart schools: Sensory and digital ethnographic methods

THESE ARE MY MOST RECENT ARTICLES IN OPEN SOURCE:

Fugitive Study at University: Moving Beyond Neoliberal Affect Through Aesthetic Experimentation with Space-Times 

New Possibilities for Spatial Research: Re-Animating the Built Environment Through Speculative Maps and Models [co-authored with E. de Freitas]