Arts-based Research Research Articles

A Picture of Perfect Mental Health: Exploring Barriers and Facilitators to First-Generation College Student Wellness Through Photovoice

ABSTRACT Employing arts-based inquiry and drawing on photovoice, this study explores how first-generation college students manage their mental wellness at a large, public research university in the Southern United States. Compared to continuing-generation peers, these students face unique challenges, exacerbating health challenges. Findings indicated how the need for employment, college burnout, and juggling responsibilities present challenges and how connections to culture and nature helped to alleviate stress. This study is designed to inform the institution, partners, and the existing research on what presents stressors to participants and how they manage their college-going experience, so we might better serve first-generation college students.

Promoting Resilience and Well-Being of Young Adults with Diabetes Through Digital Storytelling in Arts-Based Research

ABSTRACT This arts-based research explores the role and impact of digital storytelling in supporting young adults with diabetes in China to face diabetes-related stigma and promote resilience and well-being. Twenty participants with diabetes recounted their experiences across three workshops and shared their perspectives on digital storytelling through semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that digital storytelling, as a health intervention, facilitates a comfortable environment for participants to articulate the traumatic impact of diabetes stigma. It encourages collective support and fosters a reinterpretation of the diabetes experience, enhancing participants’ capacity for future health management. The results also highlight the limitations of digital storytelling, particularly concerning its accessibility and transparency. Participants’ experiences underscore the need for careful consideration of these challenges to maximize the therapeutic potential of digital storytelling in the context of chronic illness management.

The Integration of Arts-Based Research Methods in Scientific Studies

Arts-based research (ABR) integrates creative and artistic practices into academic research, offering novel methodologies that enrich scientific inquiry. This interdisciplinary approach enables the exploration of complex human experiences, emotions, and phenomena through mediums like visual art, drama, poetry, and music. This paper examines the benefits and challenges of integrating arts-based research into scientific studies, highlighting its capacity to elicit deeper, embodied insights that complement traditional methods. While ABR fosters innovative data collection and engagement, it faces skepticism regarding rigor and validity in the scientific community. This study examines how the collaboration between scientists and artists can bridge these challenges, emphasizing best practices for effective integration. The paper concludes by offering examples of successful arts-based research in scientific contexts and suggests strategies for future implementation. Keywords: Arts-based research, Interdisciplinary research, Artistic methodologies, Scientific inquiry, Creative expression, Data collection.

Reimagining the Future of Reproduction from a Black Queer Lens: An Art-Based Approach to the Study of Reproductive Health Care

ABSTRACT Black Queer people’s reproductive experiences are largely under-documented and under-reported in health communication research, despite the omnipresence of their storytelling within humanities-based literature. Drawing from a larger health study using Black feminist perspectives and centering Black Queer people’s lived experiences with reproduction, previous health research, and Black Queer poetics, this study uses an art-based research approach to create erasure poems that detail how Black Queer birthing people resist and survive reproductive-based injustices. Specifically, through this innovative approach, I construct eight erasure poems developed from the previous insights of Black Queer people’s answer to “What is the future of reproduction?” These poems detail unparalleled truths about the needs and strategies that necessitate efforts to improve reproductive justice for my community. The poems detail Black Queer people’s discussions of the importance of community networks along our reproductive health journeys, creating new conceptualizations of motherhood and parenthood, new understandings of reproductive-based stigma and oppression, and our use of spirituality as a tool for reclaiming reproductive autonomy.

Whose Side Are We On? Toward an Emancipatory Ethic in Critical Arts-Based Research

The renowned U.S. sociologist Howard S. Becker, writing in 1969, posed the ethical question: Whose side are we on? In the context of continued structural inequalities in the distribution of power and wealth and individual and institutional oppression, in terms of class, race, gender, disability, and sexual orientation, this question remains as important as ever. The article, in advocating a robustly partisan approach, offers an emancipatory ethical framework continuum and an empirical example, from the authors’ critical arts-based research with undocumented Mexican Americans, to support and inform critical researchers, committed to working with oppressed groups against discrimination and for social justice.

A/R/Tographic Investigation into Artistic Development Processes of Painting and Drawing Teacher Education Undergraduate Students

This study is a qualitative study designed to investigate the artistic development processes of undergraduate art education students a/r/tographically and to determine the role of portfolio preparation in this process. The present research was conducted in the workshop course of the 4th-grade students of the Department of Art and Art Education of a medium-sized university in the academic year 2022-2023 with the participation of 10 volunteer workshop students. The study group of this research was selected through criterion (purposive) sampling. The collection of the data of the research consisted of student educational development files (portfolio) prepared during the inquiry process, the question pool created, a/r/tograph opinions collected through a semi-structured interview form prepared by taking the opinions of field experts, peer opinions, expert opinions and student artistic products that emerged at the end of the process. Qualitative data analysis was used to analyse the data related to the a/r/tographic process, which is an art-based research method. Accordingly, content analysis was used in student, peer and expert evaluations of educational development files (portfolio). Students' artistic processes and a/r/tographic questioning processes were analysed using descriptive analysis. It was seen that the students were satisfied with the educational development files (portfolio) that they examined by making self-evaluation. Peers and experts who examined the educational development files (portfolio) stated that the files could generally be improved. It was observed that the students were involved in the a/r/tographic process in a determined or accidental way and that they continued the process by making inquiries. It was observed that students developed different perspectives with their artist identities and expressed themselves with process-oriented products that they reflected themselves.

Performing the changing landscape

This exposition refers to arts-based research on simultaneous performative walking and singing practice in a changing environment. The act of walking is put in the context of landscape and singing representing two aspects of relation to the environment – inner and outer landscape. The object of research is traditional and authorial songs and their bodily and sensual interconnection with the process of experiencing landscape. This experience is gained with a group of artists and environmentalists who have over the course of more than a year repetitively walked through the landscape of the natural park Prokop Valley in Prague and its adjacent urban areas. Qualitative research is taken within the project “Walking as a liquid constant in urban space and landscape”. The method of data collection uses mental maps, inspired by the concept of Kevin Lynch, as a means of documentation. The exposition has three parts 1) the opening video essay, 2) Opus caementicium, autoethnographic reflection of the site, where the project takes place, and 3) Fugue of the vanishing world – an essay on the musical aspect of the project. Chapter titles are inspired by musical terminology that has content connotations in the text or mirrors the structuring of text and musical compositions.

Using Animation to Address Disparities in Kidney Transplantation

ABSTRACT This essay reviews an arts-based project based in Buffalo, New York, seeking to educate patients with kidney failure and their social network about the transplantation process. Through a multi-phase arts-based research project, informed by a community-based steering committee and key stakeholders, 33 educational animated videos were developed and tested for efficacy in samples of diverse patients at a regional transplant center. Animation was chosen for its potential to better explain health concepts more sensibly to patients and support knowledge dissemination to their social network, who may donate a kidney or support a recipient or donor. The videos are 2D, short in duration, and designed for easy viewing on small devices using characters, scenes, narration, and movement. Aesthetic choices reinforce learning: characters have confident posture, memorable features (e.g. hair style, clothing color) with minimal detail, and model diverse races, ethnicities, gender, and body types. Scenes feature light backgrounds, illuminate main images, and are as large as possible for small screens. Narration is slow, calm, and uses strategic pauses to introduce concepts. Movement is selective to reinforce the message (signaling). The animation was guided by self-efficacy theory and the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Findings to date indicate promising results with respect to patient knowledge and the feasibility of using animation to address disparities in kidney transplantation. Figures illustrate the evolution of the project and provide examples of the art used to capture a given aspect of the transplantation process.

The Power of Puppetry as an Arts-Based Tool for Health and Disability Communication Research

ABSTRACT In this article, we argue that using puppetry as a tool for arts-based research can enhance existing health and disability communication scholarship. We position interdisciplinary puppetry research alongside concepts and theories of interest to communication scholars, including entertainment education, embodiment and performance, communicated narrative sense-making, and dialogue. Then, we share an illustrative case study from our research with the nonprofit organization, MicheLee Puppets. Drawing from interviews with five puppeteers, we describe how the Live Puppet Chat program created unexpected opportunities to connect with neurodiverse spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our “crystalized” narrative and thematic analysis demonstrates how puppeteers used puppet-objects to facilitate dialogue with chat participants. This involved (a) suspending disbelief, (b) suspending judgment, (c) communicating through the lens of (neurodiverse) empowerment, and (c) improvising for empowerment.

Mail art methods and the social and cultural geographies of families affected by rare disease

ABSTRACT Building on geographic scholarship around disability and drawing on a programme of arts-based research, we bring attention to the social and cultural geographies of families affected by rare disease. Seeking creative methodological opportunities, we invited families to send us postcards as a means of sharing experiences and reflections. We contextualize the emergence of the postcard as a modality of communication, situating our work within a wider epistolary and artistic tradition, before examining the opportunities postcarding might produce for geographic and broader qualitative research, noting the forms conduciveness to multimodality and recent calls for more engagement with the medium. We detail our own practices of participatory postcarding and the questions, challenges, and hopes such raised. Analysing the postcards received, we discuss how such helps understand the shifting social and cultural geographies of rare disease, reflecting on themes of (in)accessibility and exclusion, changing domestic geographies, and the importance of, and challenges associated with, family-based identities and communities in the context of rare disease. Such highlights opportunities for disability geography to engage in cross-cutting conversations and agenda-building with the nascent area of family geographies, along with further geographic inquiry into the spaces and worlds of rare disease.

What is my truth and who decides?: exploring viable social identity scripts and performances with latina/x artivists in an arts-based youth participatory action research troupe

This seven-month critical performance ethnographic study explores the lived experiences of Latina/x youth artivist-researchers. The data collected through participant observations, arts-based elicitation and semi-structured interviews, artifacts, and analytic memos reveal how Latina/x youth utilize artmaking to understand and construct a viable social identity. Their participation in an arts-based youth participatory action research (YPAR) project and intergenerational theatre ensemble we call Estrella Theatre (ET) company indicates how art and social justice-driven inquiry provokes reflection on the identity scripts and performances youth use in our daily lives. Findings reveal that Latina/x youth identity scripts and performances appear across personal, interpersonal, and social planes of identity where they experience identity clashes, artful identity development, new identities, and identity code-switching.

The Ancient Tantric in Balinese Contemporary Art

In recent years, artists from various cultures have increasingly drawn on the spiritual and philosophical principles of ancient tantra. This article explores the influence of ancient tantric traditions on contemporary Balinese arts. It employed an innovative art-based research methodology utilizing qualitative, interpretive, and practice-based research methods. These included observation, interviews, and document analysis while integrating theoretical frameworks, symbolic perspectives, and theo-aesthetic considerations. The research reveals how artists transform and reinterpret tantric themes in their work, highlighting the complex relationship between modern expressions and ancient inspirations. Balinese art, as the study shows, achieves beauty by blending opposites, such as masculine and feminine qualities, through the concept of lanang-wadon. By examining this topic, the research provides valuable insights into the evolving relationship between spirituality, creativity, and cultural exchange in Bali and the interconnected world. This study underscores the dynamic interplay between ancient traditions and contemporary artistic practices, showcasing a unique fusion that enriches both the art and its cultural context.

Creating deeper attachments: Reflections on developing arts-based pedagogy and practice within psychology

In this article we explore the potential of arts-based methodologies to contribute to pedagogy and practice in psychology. Drawing on insights developed by Elliot Eisner (2008) related to what education can learn from the arts, we first explore how Eisner's ideas, along with our experiences, might infuse research supervision. Through ‘applied practice’ we then identify some of the potential benefits and challenges of including arts-based methods during supervision. Reflections show how important it is to create a safe space, deconstruct hierarchies, and provide examples of arts-based research, along with an opportunity to experiment and share. Together, these seem to support the development of trusting mature relationships that can lead to personal growth and transformation. While we have become advocates for the potential of arts-based research in psychology our reflections also identify a number of challenges and conditions to realising such benefits.

Homelessness During the Pandemic: The Use of Arts to Mobilize Knowledge

The following is a review of three arts-based research projects developed to mobilize knowledge in understandable ways for diverse populations regarding the stories of people who are homeless. All three projects were carried out in Canada – each with a different focus. The first research project created a film – Walking Through Wonderland (2010) - that captured the daily lived experiences of many street youths, such as being unable to find places to sleep, as well as not having food, or access to health care and social services, particularly for mental health care. Additionally, the film highlighted that many youths had become homeless because of major family trauma. The second research project created a Book of Images (2018) that visually portrayed the stories regarding housing stability among young people – in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Toronto, Ontario – who had previously experienced homelessness. The third research project created an arts-based film production, Homelessness During the Pandemic (2022), with visual images and classical, almost haunting, music for the background to illustrate the experiences of homelessness during the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) in two communities of Nova Scotia –Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) and Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM).

Landcare and Landscapes and Accidental Beauty: Failing Digital Technologies and the Gaze of Child Researchers

This visual essay curates an exhibition of photographic data from a project with children about Landcare, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to managing environmental issues in local communities across Australia. The project sought to empower children to engage with Landcare Reserves through participatory arts-based research to map their awareness of and participation in local Landcare Reserve sites. This visual essay recognizes the images as agentic entities, with the power to activate the gaze beyond the boundaries of this project as embedded yet transcendent from it whilst simultaneously acknowledging the ‘failing’ agency of the sensing body of the camera.

Wetland photography, encounters and values

Between 2016 and 2019 I embarked on a photo-essay of wetlands in English Lowlands as part of the UKRI funded project WetlandLIFE. This was a personal exploration of the sense of place of wetlands as experienced through photography. The aim was to create a collection of images around which the values of wetlands could be considered. Over 2000 photographs were taken and 32 images formed the final collection. Thirteen photographs and two photo-compilations are presented in this paper alongside reflections on the contribution of arts-based research and photography to encountering nature and creating conversations about human/nature relations. The photographs are thematically presented in six categories reflecting different aspects of my wetland experiences, these are: Authority; Memory; Work and Leisure; Creatures; Texture and Movement; Vistas (expansive and enclosed). The photographs illustrate ways society and nature are intertwined and provide a departure point for conversations about wetlands as socio-natural places.

Self-care for preservice and in-service art educators: A matter of survival in the profession

This article presents an overview of a case study that uses an arts-based research intervention to support the development of self-care strategies for preservice and in-service art teachers towards improved work-life balance. Three recommendations are provided: (1) the necessity for teachers to individualize practices of self-care; (2) creating communities of care to support the collective design and use of self-care practices and (3) defining boundaries that promote a healthier work-life balance. The author shares reflections on how these recommendations influenced her own pedagogy at the university level, preparing preservice art educators and sustaining the practices of in-service art educators. Assignment prompts, exemplars of self-care artist trading cards and juggling act visualization artmaking activities are presented as well as a discussion on how to model self-care practices for art educators.

More Than a Photograph: An Analysis of the Photographs of the Interdisciplinary Creative Research Center “Pracownia” Using the Six-Moves Typology in Arts-Based Research

In this article I analyze the actions of the Interdisciplinary Creative Research Center “Pracownia” using the author’s art-based research typology of six moves: downward (two types), upward, inward, along, and across. The paper considers culture animation/community arts to be practices of researching oneself and the world through art. I explain this via the example of “Pracownia” and select one photo of their actions from the years 1978–1981 in order to present every point of the typology. The research aims to fill in the gaps in the history of Polish community arts/culture animation, whilst providing analytical tools for social scientists and practical guidelines for culture animators/community artists.

Looking at Arts Institutions, Communities, and Space: Reflections and Research from the Field of Art Sociology

In this introduction to the journal issue, the editors characterize the individual scholarly articles included in the volume. They also briefly recall their research interests in the field of art. The texts in the volume deal with three intertwining dimensions: cultural and art institutions, communities (artistic and aesthetic), and space. Most of the authors presented their research at the academic conference ‘Esthetic Communities and Artistic Institutions’ (2023), organized by the Art Sociology Section of the Polish Sociological Association. Polish contemporary sociology of art is mainly empirical sociology. Qualitative research in the field of art sociology in Poland has been used since the 1960s. Initially, they had been treated as experimental, gradually transforming into an increasingly common approach. Sociologists most often used various types of qualitative analyses of materials as well as interviews. Researchers still often use these techniques today, but one can also see the use of other methods, e.g., as part of the art-based research approach (this methodological orientation was used in one of the articles).

Embracing Change and Refraction: A Prism Through Pandemic Times

This special issue initially arose from the 2019 Provoking Curriculum Studies Conference at the University of Regina. Shortly after the conference, the world was thrown into the COVID-19 pandemic. The papers in this special issue view the pandemic through a prism to consider existing practices within the academy and reflect upon and imagine new possibilities for academic work and lives. Author explorations include arts-based inquiry, grief, peer-to-peer support, Indigenous Métissage, poetic inquiry and diasporic bodies.