This paper reports on an arts-based research study that aimed to support international students to reflect on their studies and personal working lives during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The authors implemented a reflective process involving mindfulness and body mapping to support international students in expressing their experiences and feelings during this time. Results show that the international students gained a deeper understanding of what they experienced personally and how these experiences were both different and similar to their peers. The process enabled students to acknowledge and accept challenges faced as well as provided a safe avenue to do so. They reported the powerful nature of the arts-based methods in helping them think positively about their studies and future working lives.

In Part 1 of ‘Encountering Berlant’, we encounter the promise and provocation of Lauren Berlant's work. In 1000‐word contributions, geographers and others stay with what Berlant's thought offers contemporary human geography. They amplify an encounter with their work, demonstrating how a concept, idea, or style disrupts something, opens up a new possibility, or simply invites thinking otherwise. The encounters range across the incredible body of work Berlant left us with, from the ‘national sentimentality’ trilogy through to recent work on negativity. Varying in form and tone, the encounters exemplify and enact the inexhaustible plenitude of Berlant's thought: fantasy, the case, love, impasse, feel tanks, slow death, ellipses, gesture, attrition, intimate public, ambivalence, style. Part 2 of ‘Encountering Berlant’ focuses on Berlant's most influential concept: ‘cruel optimism’. Across these heterogeneous encounters, Berlant's enduring concern with the tensions and possibilities of relationality and how to enact better forms of common life shine through. These enduring concerns and Berlant's commitment to the incoherence and overdetermination of phenomena are summarised in the Introduction, which also explores how Berlant's work has been engaged with in geography. The result is a repository of what an encounter with Berlant's thought makes possible.

Wellbeing education (WE) is increasingly offered among secondary schools internationally to promote the physical, social, emotional and mental health of young people. Current and emerging evidence proposes that scope exists for the enhancement of universal WE, and that arts‐based approaches have significant potential for school programmes in enhancing the effectiveness of WE. This sits alongside a growing body of international literature that connects arts engagement with positive mental wellbeing across age groups. Existing research also shows that the evaluation of the goals, pedagogy and student engagement within WE from the perspectives of teachers is uncommon. To this end, this qualitative research investigated teacher perspectives on the potential for arts‐based WE. Through an asynchronous group interview, 10 Australian secondary school arts teachers with expertise in a variety of visual and performing arts education reflected on current WE in light of their arts teaching practice, exploring possibilities for enhancement through art‐based practices. Thematic analysis using a socio‐ecological framework reveals strong support for arts‐based WE, noting positive potential for arts engagement to facilitate increased teacher and student autonomy, relationship building, safe and inclusive environments, and enjoyable, embodied learning within WE.

The arts are anchored in human creativity, expression and interpretation. The introduction of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) challenges traditional notions of creativity, authorship, and emotional intelligence, prompting arts educators to consider its place in the classroom. In this pilot, six tertiary arts educators and three generative AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot), answered the question: how can AI improve arts education? Using Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic analysis, we mapped convergences, divergences, and silences across human and non-human actors. The paper contributes to understanding how integrated human creativity and technological advancements can support students, reveals potential directions for practice and research, and raises concerns that must be mitigated regarding equity of access and AI literacy.