Co-Creative Visual Poetic Inquiry for communicating lived experience of HIV self-management and self-care

Abstract

We introduce our innovative analytic approach that draws from poetic and visual forms of inquiry: ‘Co-Creative Visual Poetic Inquiry’. We report on the development of this approach in the context of a design research project that explored individuals’ lived experiences of self-care practices for living well with HIV. We present a set of visual poems that were co-created between the research team members as a means to capture and communicate idiographic insights from this project. We aim to contribute methodological insights through a case study, about how Co-Creative Visual Poetic Inquiry can support the qualitative analysis and dissemination of research. We highlight the value of the approach for helping researchers co-define a research agenda early on in a project, in dialogue with members of the research population. We also show how poetic, visual and time-based forms of representation can be used in individual and collective analyses, for phenomenological engagement and to communicate insights to stakeholders in ways that retain emotional and performative qualities of expression. We conclude by critically reflecting on the scope and limitations of our novel combination of methods, and encourage other design researchers in health and wellbeing research to appropriate and develop this approach.