This thesis is written to accompany a portfolio of digital outputs I am submitting to the University of South Wales for a PhD by Portfolio. In this thesis, I articulate the value of counter-storytelling for decolonising Higher Education (HE) curricula and exemplify this with outputs from three projects I led at the University of the Arts London between 2018-2022. I retrospectively frame and reflect on these project outputs as practice research to illustrate what counter-storytelling looked like and how it operated in the context of a metropolitan art school circa 2020. I do not evaluate the impact of the projects in this thesis as this has been and continues to be undertaken separately. Instead, I use this thesis as an opportunity to examine how the projects enabled counter-storytelling, community-building and radical space-making for racial justice in education, in different ways and places. With this, the thesis and portfolio offer valuable insights and examples for fellow educators, educational developers and researchers within and beyond arts education.  

The main body of the thesis is organised into five chapters. In Chapter 1, I outline my positionality for readers to know how my identity and experience informs my approach to the projects and research. In Chapter 2, I introduce the three projects of the portfolio, describing the key collaborators and features of each. In Chapter 3, I discuss the context of curriculum reform, decolonisation and decoloniality surrounding the projects, and in Chapter 4, I discuss the practice research methodology and ethical considerations. In Chapter 5, I introduce Critical Race Theory and the Critical Race method of counter-storytelling and I exemplify how this theory and method applies to specific project outputs. I include additional sections in Chapter 5 to discuss and illustrate the counter-storytelling communities and spaces the projects created. I conclude the thesis with Final Reflections in which I highlight key insights that have emerged, the original contribution made and areas for potential further research.  

I provide here some direction for readers: I intend for chapters of the thesis to be read in the order they are presented and for readers to engage with project outputs as they appear in the text. The key outputs are an online zine of 64 pages and six YouTube videos of about 90 minutes each; these are all open access. The Portfolio Index provides an index of all public domain outputs cited in the thesis and maps public domain in relation to internal project outputs. The Glossary explains key terms used in the thesis, and the Reference List provides details of all sources cited.  I present my thesis and portfolio as a website to offer readers a more spatial and dynamic experience. After completing the PhD, this website will enter the public domain in the same spirit of open access and knowledge democratisation as the project outputs reflected upon. This is to enable more people, within and beyond academia, to access and benefit from the research. 

Before proceeding, I would like to offer a big thank you to all project collaborators and contributors and to the University of the Arts London for sponsoring and hosting these projects. I also offer thanks and gratitude to my University of South Wales supervisors Dr Sarah Crews, Professor Roiyah Saltus and Dr Michael Carklin, and to my University of Kent colleagues, my partner, family and friends for their guidance and support through the process of producing this thesis.