Third Culture Kids as Cultural Caretakers within Creative Practice

As a teaching artist and PhD candidate at QUT, my practice-led research explores how contemporary visual arts and pedagogical approaches can give voice to the lived experiences of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), young people who navigate transnational identities due to highly mobile upbringings. This paper outlines my studio and classroom strategies designed to respond to their cultural hybridity, identity formation and search for belonging. It focuses on practical, arts-based methods that foster agency, empathy, and visibility for TCKs. Furthermore, it presents a transferable pedagogical model for supporting TCK wellbeing and inclusion. Drawing on over twenty-five years in arts education, I examine how visual expression enables TCKs to put form to feeling and share their narratives in safe, collaborative environments. Within a post-pandemic public school context in Brisbane, I position myself as an empathetic witness to their stories, facilitating workshops where participants reflect on place, memory, and identity. Their resulting artworks reveal nuanced perspectives on cultural hybridity and express the emotional complexity of existing in a cultural third space. By analysing these creative engagements, this paper highlights the powerful role teaching artists can play in amplifying marginalised voices and promoting pluralistic dialogue, both within the classroom and broader artistic discourse.