The 2009 conference is hosted by The Science Shop, Queen's University Belfast

The Aesthetic Dimension:  Arts-Based Participatory Research and Knowledge Dissemination

Community practices in arts-based research and knowledge dissemination open spaces for experimentation with alternative approaches, weaving aesthetic sensibilities and understandings with post-positivistic forms of expression.  They are essentially about writing outside the lines, transgressing the rules, while staying within the lines of discursive practices aiming to disrupt the dominant discourses in society that silence and marginalise. The artworks themselves are the mediums for messages needing to be heard and seen (Ball, 2002; Butterwick, 2002; Cole & McIntyre, 2004).

The workshop will begin with a discussion of contemporary frameworks of arts-based research and knowledge dissemination followed by two stories to demonstrate how different arts were used to encourage and produce knowledge sharing and creative community engagement.  The first is from a study with homeless/street-involved women who developed collective artworks followed by public arts exhibitions to encourage critical-aesthetic reflection and community outreach around inter-woven and highly divisionary issues of poverty, violence and health.  The second is a story of the collective development of art to address issues of racism and complex multi-racial identities. A quilt was used to capture multi-faceted images of what it means to live in or come from a multi-racial background with participants at a multiracial family event.

Areas of the arts and community arts-based research that will guide the group discussion include:

1) Potentials and challenges of diverse genres/methods (theatre, photography, etc.);

2) Methods of visual data analysis; 

3) Collective-participatory methods versus artist-driven; 

4) Aesthetic considerations versus epistemic orientation;

5) Ethical questions in community arts-based methodologies;

6) Role of culture/aesthetic in social change-oriented research.

Theme:

Sustaining CBR practice through arts and cultural forms

Presenters Name:

Darlene E. Clover and Christine Downing

Presenters Institution:

University of Victoria, Antidote, Multi-Racial Families Project

Presenters Biography:

Darlene E. Clover is an Associate Professor in Leadership Studies and Adult Education at the University of Victoria.  Her areas of research and teaching include arts-based research, arts-based adult and feminist education, community and cultural leadership, and women and leadership.  Darlene has undertaken national and international studies on the arts as tools of research and education for social and cultural change and knowledge dissemination and mobilisation. Her most recent publication is titled "The Arts and Social Justice:  Re-Crafting Adult Education and Community Cultural Leadership".

Christine Downing has over 25 years experience in community development in the United Kingdom and Canada.  She has worked with both governmental and non-governmental agencies on issues of social development/justice for marginalized communities, homelessness & poverty, violence against women and racism. Christine has extensive expertise in programme design and implementation and is currently Project Coordinator for the Multiracial Family Project, based in Victoria, BC (hosted by Antidote - Multiracial Girl's and Women's Network).