Creative Arts Practice Research Articles

Female Participation in Creative Arts Practice and Sustainable Development in Selected Primary Schools in Cross River State, Nigeria

The aim of this paper was to discuss on how active participation of primary school pupils in creative art can bring sustainable development in the society. Generally, people do not see the subject “art” as an important course. They place more emphasis on other courses such as engineering, medicine, law and what have you. Art is of no value to most people in the society. Meanwhile everywhere man is, there is artistic presence. Right from the clothes we wear, the food we eat, chairs in our sitting room, the pots, plates and spoons in our kitchen, the desk, chairs and table in our schools. Our hair dos and decoration and even music from our radios and televisions are all artistic. So in order to recognize its importance and for the fact that we need these artistic values everyday of our lives we must lay more emphasis on the training of our children right from their tender age on the idea of Art Creativity. To discuss effectively on this topic, the following were looked into: Definition of creative art, Arts Creativity and the primary school child, problems of teaching and learning of arts, Arts creativity and sustainable development, Summary and conclusion were finally drawn

Drawing and installation on the British Peak District: Self, environment and a mobile working kit

This text reports about my practice-based doctoral research project exploring the question ‘How can the relationships between self and the outdoor environment of Bakestonedale Moor manifest in a creative arts practice from drawing and installation?’. I have developed a drawing and installation practice as the bearer and expression of my relationship with the outdoor places of the British Peak District in the vicinity of Pott Shrigley. This led to the development of the ‘mobile working kit’, a collection of modules fashioned from paper, string, wood and fabric, which I use to make drawings and mark the land with sculptural additions. My outdoor art-making events may only last a few hours but I later exhibit its artefacts as indoor art displays complemented by photographs and videos from the outdoor sites. I provide descriptions of two drawing activities outdoors, first, using a three-dimensional fence-like paper sculpture as a drawing surface and, second, drawing on a ground-based paper platform. These examples of art-making are then contextualized in reference to Barad’s concept of intra-activity where material changes in the world are understood to occur in co-constitutional negotiation of all active components. I use this concept and Barad’s understanding of performativity to describe process in art-making and in geological, meteorological and biological changes outdoors. I then relate these positions to current performance drawing in reference to the role of the artist and how the arts practice determines her connection to the outdoor environment.

Co-design and evaluation of a youth-informed organisational tool to enhance trauma-informed practices in the UK public sector: a study protocol

IntroductionA trauma-informed approach (TIA) means working with awareness that people’s histories of trauma may shape the way they engage with services, organisations or institutions. Young people with adverse childhood experiences...

Creative arts as self-care: vicarious trauma, resilience and the trainee art therapist

ABSTRACT Background Research shows that indirect trauma can negatively affect professionals in helping professions, with students and young professionals at greater risk, particularly if they have a personal history of trauma. Research suggests that engaging in the creative arts may help professionals process vicarious trauma and promote resilience. Context This paper explores the use of creative arts practice for self-care by an art therapy trainee with lived experience of somatic disorder symptoms and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), working in a secure setting. Approach Using a trauma lens, the paper discusses how the creative arts can ameliorate the effects of indirect trauma when working as a trainee art therapist in a challenging context. The trainee’s early life experiences elucidate the challenges of countertransference and trauma. The creative arts process supports the reflexive skills an art therapist uses for effective practice. Outcomes The creative arts as a self-care practice supported the trainee art therapist to negotiate her dissociative defence style. It was an effective tool for managing the ill-effects of exposure to trauma, including somatic symptoms, and benefited the trainee’s development. Conclusions The creative arts helped the trainee to reconnect with her body and emotions, and subsequently benefited her clinical thinking. Implications for research Art therapy training programmes could include explicitly teaching about the risks and benefits of working in the profession, as this may promote longevity and improve therapeutic outcomes for service users. Further research on dissociative responses to trauma and creative arts as self-care for therapists would be valuable. Plain-language summary Research in the past 30 years has found that people working in helping professions are at risk of experiencing trauma symptoms through their work with service users. This can have a negative effect on their health and wellbeing, as well as their relationships with others. If unaddressed it can also negatively affect their ability to provide effective therapy. Students and people with a history of trauma are at greater risk. This paper explores the personal experience of a trainee art therapist working in a secure hospital setting. It describes how creative arts practice helped the trainee to cope with the challenging content of therapy sessions and promote their own wellbeing. It uses the trainee’s experience as a young carer to elucidate the emotional and physical toll of caring and the long-lasting impact it can have. The trainee’s experiences suggest that the creative arts can help with high levels of stress and hypervigilance, negative physical symptoms and personal trauma triggers, and promote greater wellbeing. The article calls for research into the value of including teaching around trauma, including physical symptoms, in training programmes for art therapists, and how the creative arts can be used as a self-care tool.

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: interdisciplinary creative art practice and nature connections

Scoliosis is an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine with the large majority of cases classed as idiopathic, meaning there is no known cause. Typically, most cases occur in children...

The ‘poietic’ turn: creative arts research in the academy

ABSTRACT This article is concerned with creative arts practices as forms of knowing, and as forms capable of expressing this knowing. Our aim here is to make sense of the factors that have driven creative artists into the university over the last three decades, and to articulate how creative practices function in the present ‘research’ context. We argue that, after three decades of creative arts practice aligning to university notions of ‘research’, something important is happening to both. We think a ‘poietic turn’ is underway within university research that may have profound implications for scholarship and for the sector more broadly. In making this case we consider what, historically, creative arts have brought to the university and why, and we reflect on this thing called ‘research’ and where it is heading. Finally, we suggest that creative arts methods and practices (that constitute this ‘poietic turn’) may offer important tools through which scholars can understand and respond to the forms of personal, communal, and global stewardship required for our contemporary times.

P35 - Getting to the heart of it: poetry as research data and deep reflection

To explore and demonstrate the use of poetry in research and practice. In this workshop, we first present the significant role of creativity in human experience and demonstrate, with current literature and research examples, how poetry can be used to present interview data and also as a way of accessing universal experience for deep reflection. Attendees will participate in a series of writing activities and are encouraged to bring a piece of raw research data, or an incident for reflection to work with. These will be shared at the end of the session and have the option of being showcased for conference participants. Creativity and play are integral to the human experience and, although not always formally acknowledged, creative energy is at the source of research, thought and practice. Along with learning about research structure and rigour, or practice guidelines, it is vital that researchers and practitioners realise the value of the creative process in the advancement of ideas and in the integration of complex emotions. Developing creative potential can enhance understanding and lead to new insights. Embedding creative arts practice in traditional qualitative research methodologies can help to develop the creative process of the researcher, and result in more perceptive data analysis and interpretation. For practitioners, creative arts practice can result in deeper self-awareness and understanding. Creative research methods can enhance our understanding of the human condition. The use of poetry in qualitative research or reflective practice offers a novel way of presenting data and processing emotions, which can shift perspective and provide access to unexpected knowledge directions. This is important for midwifery researchers and clinicians who are often attempting to bridge various ways of knowing as they investigate the art and science of practice.

Afterword

Afterword Nicholas Holden (bio) As the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the virus's most transmissible strain to date, took hold across the United Kingdom in December 2021, with London at its epicentre, the impact of illness and enforced isolation on productions brought fresh challenges to the city's cultural landscape coming into the new year. In the weekend before Christmas, almost half of productions in London were forced to close due to staff shortages, leaving theatres in what producer Cameron Mackintosh described as "a dreadful state."1 In the midst of what should have been a profitable season for the industry, theatres were instead forced to live day-to-day, unable to commit to performances beyond a twenty-four-hour window. Audiences, too, have suffered. Having returned to support theatres as restrictions in England eased, many are now unable to commit to attending the theatre coming into 2022, fearful both of the virus's increasing presence and the financial impact of a last-minute show cancellation. With additional governmental support unlikely, the situation looks only to deteriorate further as the year ensues. Postponements and ultimately closures seem an inevitability. Indeed, many within the industry—actors, producers, directors, writers, technical teams, front of house staff, and the myriad others who enable London's theatre to function in a way worthy of its world-leading status—are choosing to leave to pursue new careers, unable to sustain themselves any longer. We are undoubtedly living through one of the most difficult periods in theatre history, but the true impact of the pandemic on the industry's future both in terms of the communities and places that shape London's theatre may not be fully realized for some time. Nicholas Holden Nicholas Holden is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Greenwich, UK. He is co-editor of the book series Playwriting and the Contemporary: Critical Collaborations (Liverpool University Press, UK). Alongside this, he is the author of book chapters and articles in the areas of Contemporary British Theatre, and Creative Arts Practice in London, and is the co-editor of the forthcoming edited collection: Beautiful Doom: the Work of Dennis Kelly on Stage and Screen (Manchester University Press, UK, 2023). Notes 1. Ian Youngs, 'Omicron: Half of West End Theatres Hit by Covid Cancellations at the Weekend.', BBC NEWS, 20 December 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59725684 (accessed 7 January 2022). Copyright © 2022 Comparative Drama

Practice-based Research and Creative Arts Practice:

This research uses a creative arts practice emerging from the processes of drawing and installation to create and explore the relationships between the artist and the outdoor spaces of the British Peak District. A mobile working kit made from paper, fabric and wood is used to make temporary installations outdoors in response to wind, weather and topography. The mobile working kit modules are then returned to the studio and later installed in art exhibition spaces, their display indexing the connection between self, other and the outdoors. The multitude of processes in outdoor environments and their relationships to landscape and its inhabitants’ actions is used as a methodological template to frame change. Based on the dichotomy of mobility and inscription, artmaking actions and the research process are described through the conceptual lenses of ‘gesture’, ‘practice’ and an expanded understanding of drawing. Following this, a taxonomy is suggested that categorises the embodiment of artmaking events from the tensions between their experienced particularities and the artist’s perceived material practice frameworks.

Concept Generation

Concept Generation is an event where participants create new innovations from market led criteria and trade this intellectual property for beer and peanuts. This critical and comedic project engages participants with a design process appropriated from surrealist techniques, in order to glibly mine the depths of product and service niches, where creative industries have not yet ventured. This workshop investigates the spectrum between creative industries and aesthetic art practice and asks participants to form their own critical position. The social contract between the host and the participant is transparent – the event is free, but participants must create marketable ideas to pitch to the artist, in order to exchange their concept for a beer. The artist has sole right over the intellectual property. This exchange mirrors the exploitation of precarious creative workers, for whom work and lifestyle blend, where a workshop can also become a party. Concept Generation presents the mutability of work and leisure, of consumption and production, of art practice and creative industry, and of creative thinking and marketing. In a satire of ideation, participants are asked to sell their ridiculous idea, and many get carried away with the farce. Production is the only imperative, and the more ridiculous the ideas are, the more we believe they might actually succeed.

The Embodied-Enactive-Interactive Brain: Bridging Neuroscience and Creative Arts Therapies.

The recognition and incorporation of evidence-based neuroscientific concepts into creative arts therapeutic knowledge and practice seem valuable and advantageous for the purpose of integration and professional development. Moreover, exhilarating insights from the field of neuroscience coincide with the nature, conceptualization, goals, and methods of Creative Arts Therapies (CATs), enabling comprehensive understandings of the clinical landscape, from a translational perspective. This paper contextualizes and discusses dynamic brain functions that have been suggested to lie at the heart of intra- and inter-personal processes. Touching upon fundamental aspects of the self and self-other interaction, the state-of-the-art neuroscientific-informed views will shed light on mechanisms of the embodied, predictive and relational brain. The conceptual analysis introduces and interweaves the following contemporary perspectives of brain function: firstly, the grounding of mental activity in the lived, bodily experience will be delineated; secondly, the enactive account of internal models, or generative predictive representations, shaped by experience, will be defined and extensively deliberated; and thirdly, the interpersonal simulation and synchronization mechanisms that support empathy and mentalization will be thoroughly considered. Throughout the paper, the cross-talks between the brain and the body, within the brain through functionally connected neural networks and in the context of agent-environment dynamics, will be addressed. These communicative patterns will be elaborated on to unfold psychophysiological linkage, as well as psychopathological shifts, concluding with the neuroplastic change associated with the formulation of CATs. The manuscript suggests an integrative view of the brain-body-mind in contexts relevant to the therapeutic potential of the expressive creative arts and the main avenues by which neuroscience may ground, enlighten and enrich the clinical psychotherapeutic practice.

Together but Apart: Creating and Supporting Online Learning Communities in an Era of Distributed Studio Education

AbstractIt would seem that technological campuses of tomorrow have manifested in 2020 as an essential spontaneous response to a world event. This article examines the current crisis in physical art and design studio learning in higher education as a consequence of the COVID‐19 outbreak and the sector’s response to the fast‐track conversion of blended learning to a distributed model. Universities are focusing on virtual community building where group work, ‘crits’ and presentations are being carried out online. Moving assessment and engagement to online formats has consequences for practice‐based art and design courses: distributed learning changes how we teach and learn. This article discusses the implications of art and design studio education in a time of distributed learning. It considers the loss of control over a physically based, practical curriculum and the repercussions for students unable to perform to the depth and rigour required for creative art and design practice. Studio education is considered a signature pedagogy, and has a distinct set of guiding principles such as facilitating critical play, thinking and making, and a pedagogy of ambiguity. This article examines the successes and challenges of moving these pedagogical principles into distributed spaces to support student engagement, using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a research framework. The article also examines pedagogical strategies that support students to engage in physical forms of creative practice that enable them to connect their lived experience in a time of crisis.

The Creative Business Model Canvas

PurposeCreative and cultural producers, like social enterprises, operate in a complex business environment where the value proposition is difficult to define, and the organisational motivations are not always financially driven. In the case of Australian visual artists, low incomes and limited access to government funding magnify the importance of developing sustainable business models. This paper aims to present the Creative Business Model Canvas (CBMC), a reinterpretation of Osterwalder and Pigneur’s CBMC (2010), for the benefit of a visual artist’s business planning.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative study uses data from semi-structured interviews to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of the Osterwalder and Pigneur’s BMC (2010) for use by creative artists to understand the value of their artwork beyond traditional profit-driven business models. A modified canvas is presented to capture a clearer snapshot of creative arts practice with a focus on value propositions that possess dimensions of symbolic value.FindingsThis study found that the symbolic value of an artist’s practice is difficult to capture using Osterwalder and Pigneur’s CBMC (2010). An artist value proposition is composed of the artifact, artistic services and the artist’s identity. The creative CBMC, as a modified CBMC, captures aspects of the artistic identity such as professional achievements, personal life and the artist’s authenticity.Originality/valueThis study builds on Osterwalder and Pigneur’s CBMC and reimagines it for use by visual artists and art-based social enterprise organisations where the notion of value can be challenging to articulate.

Challenges and enablers for creative arts practice in care homes

Abstract This article reports on the experiences of artists working in UK care homes across residencies that focused on poetry, dance and drama. Data were collected from reflective diaries and focus group discussions to explore the key challenges when working in settings that can be unfamiliar, complex and disruptive. We also describe a range of strategies that artists developed in response to these challenges (enablers) and how this supported successful delivery of their sessions. We conclude that artists need time and support to understand and adapt to the complexity of care homes, and conclude that ultimately the overarching culture of a care home is the key determinant of how successfully artists can facilitate the engagement of residents with meaningful creative activities. Experience of working with people living with dementia can be particularly valuable, as can knowing how to facilitate participation by residents with a range of sensory, physical and cognitive impairments.

Ta’wil: in Practices of Light

This research is situated within an Islamic philosophical paradigm, with a series of experiments in studio art practice. In my investigation of Mulla Sadrā’s theory of systematic intensification, I was led towards Ta’wil, a unique method of interpretation, that is primarily used for interpreting the verses of the Quran. I extract this traditional Quranic method of interpretation, Ta’wil and translate it into a visual and collective dialogue, for a practice-oriented research. Keeping in view the traditional association of the method of Ta’wil towards the Quran, I suggest there is evidence that Ta’wil is a method that can be practised outside the interpretation of the text. It is a unique method of interpretation that performs in both physical and metaphysical worlds. Ta’wil is both a noun, as an object or happening in the physical, and a process of carrying a perceptible image (for example text of the Quran) towards higher and deeper understandings. I start my writing with a brief overview of my research area, moving towards Ta’wil in creative art practice.

The Road to Resilience: Traveling the Path Less Followed to Realize What is Possible

Dr. Bernadette Mineo, PhD, OTR/L, an occupational therapist and mixed media artist based in Portland, Oregon, provided the cover art for the Winter 2019 issue of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy (OJOT). The piece, titled “Paper Dolls” (2009), consists of 37 individual paper doll sculptures made from mixed media. Dr. Mineo believes that being an artist is about connecting with one’s creative heart. Her art is about being playful, challenging oneself, and setting up experiments. Engaging in a daily creative art practice has brought joy to Dr. Mineo’s life. Art has empowered her to take risks, build resilience, and discover what is possible. By sharing her daily art practice with others, Dr. Mineo aims to promote creative solutions and hope in the face of challenging situations.

My Life is but a weaving: embroidering geographies of faith and place

This article reflects on creative arts practice as a means to research the interrelationships of creativity and faith through discussion of a textile-based arts project undertaken with women of diverse religious backgrounds in West London. Building on research on the significance of vernacular religious textiles in community space and in domestic religious practice, the arts project developed a collective embroidery installation exploring the theme of prayer and its intersections with embodied practices of creativity and biographical narratives of faith, migration and home.

Data visualization as creative art practice

This article begins by tracing the evolution of data visualization from the fields of aesthetics to areas of creative practice, arguing that the emergence of big data presents creative potential for digital artists. Whereas conventional information visualization emphasizes the effective understanding of data, aesthetics considers the possibility that visualization can enhance the experience of data and support the acquisition of knowledge. In expressing an artistic intent or form, data-based creative practices synthesize and build upon techniques in communications and aesthetics. The article provides a review of recent digital art projects involving big data and suggests further directions for creative practice in an era of data proliferation.

Making and being made: wise humanising creativity in interdisciplinary early years arts education

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on how wise humanising creativity (WHC) is manifested within early years interdisciplinary arts education. It draws on Arts Council-funded participatory research by Devon Carousel Project and University of Exeter’s Graduate School of Education. It is grounded in previous AHRC-funded research, which conceptualised WHC in the face of educational creativity/performativity tensions. WHC articulates the dialogic embodied inter-relationship of creativity and identity – creators are ‘making and being made’; they are ‘becoming’. The research used a qualitative methodology to create open-ended spaces of dialogue or ‘Living Dialogic Spaces’ framed by an ecological model to situate the team’s different positionings. Data collection included traditional qualitative techniques and arts-based techniques. Data analysis involved inductive/deductive conversations between existing theory and emergent themes. Analysis indicated that ‘making and being made’, and other key WHC features were manifested. We conclude by suggesting that WHC can help develop understanding of how creative arts practice supports the breadth of young children’s development, and the role of the creativity-identity dialogue within that, as well as indicating what the practice and research has to offer beyond the Early Years.

You Winsome, you lose some: Home and hospitality in the Northern Rivers

The Home Project was a three-year collaborative research project, established through a partnership between Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) and the School of Arts and Social Sciences (SASS) at Southern Cross University (SCU). The Home Project’s objective was to raise awareness of homelessness in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales through creative arts practice and community engagement activities. The broad project aims were to explore questions of home, homelessness and belonging in Northern Rivers’ communities; to address the experiences of individuals affected by homelessness; and, where appropriate, to provide avenues for public dissemination of the stories of individuals who are or have been without a home. This article discusses the activities undertaken in each year of the project, providing a case study of a community engaged research project involving collaboration between university staff and students, a performing arts organisation and a community service provider. We analyse the development of the project over the three years and discuss the emergence of the theme of ‘hospitality’, which came to frame the project in its latter stages as we focused our activities at the Winsome Hotel, a Heritage listed and iconic Australian hotel that now offers low-cost daily lunches and a short-term accommodation service for marginalised men. This focus on the Winsome Hotel and hospitality gave us, as researchers, a new way to think about the provision of services to people without a home.Keywords: Homelessness, hospitality, creative arts practice, community engagement, NORPA, Southern Cross University