Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

Press Release: How Creative Arts in Research offers Hope for Community Change

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PRESS RELEASE

Contact:

C.L. McLean, Publisher

International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice

CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

___________________________________________________________________________

Just released, New Book Offers Compelling Evidence.. Arts in Action Impacts Communities

How Creative Arts in Research offers Hope for Community Change

October, 2011, London, Ontario Canada

A new book offers evidence that the arts can transform communities and impact change. “Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change” published by Detselig Enterprises, Calgary, is the second book in the CAIP (Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice) Research Series, a project of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice (IJCAIP). The book is edited by Cheryl McLean, Publisher of IJCAIP, and associate editor, Robert Kelly, University of Calgary.

“This is fundamentally a book about the arts in action and practice for hope and citizen empowerment, about research and people coming together to creatively address the most critical challenges of our times, says Cheryl McLean, Editor of the CAIP series.

The book shows how researchers and communities work together in interdisciplinary projects to ignite change and address the most fundamental of human needs, the need for healthy communities with water to drink and air to breathe, the need for human expression and connection, the desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a human being of value and to voice personal stories for public witness.

The book features contributors across disciplines, among them leaders on the cutting edge in arts and educational research for change. Jan Selman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Drama, University of Alberta, was principal investigator on the project “Are We there Yet?” a six year research program involving an interdisciplinary team who created a participatory play out of a sense of urgency about the need for effective sexuality education for teens. Selman writes, “We believe creating art about our world makes a difference as art seeks to teach people at their core. … We believe that to be meaningful, education must be deeply relevant to its participants, we must immerse ourselves in our audience's world and strive to create art which will teach specific audiences as deeply as possible.”

The book offers an “up close” look at projects in action through both text and photographs as researchers demonstrate methods and approaches. Dr. B. Stephen Carpenter II, a Professor of Art Education at Penn State University, worked with ceramic artists, community workers and engineers to help find solutions to the critical need for clean potable water. He writes, “With a focus on the creation of point of use ceramic water filters as one of the key aspects of the project, the members of the group take direct action within the global struggle against the potable water crisis by seeking to assist communities and find viable ways to provide households with potable water.”

In addition to informative descriptions of methodology and research the illustrative stories featured in the book and examples themselves offer revealing insights into the day to day lives of those who live on the margins, those whose stories are seldom heard. In the article, Four Poems for Four Lives A Study of Four Ex-Prisoners Through Poetic Inquiry, Liz Day and John J. Guiney Yallop offer glimpses into the lived realities of four male ex-prisoners. “We begin this chapter by introducing the reader to four men who have lived some of their lives in prisons – as prisoners. They are now ex-prisoners, each attempting to find or re-find, to create or recreate, lives outside prison. We present the four men, the participants in this study, through poetry, in the hope that the emotional language of poetry will enable us, the authors, to convey the lived experiences those four men allowed us into. This study is not intended to be generalizable to most, or even any other, male ex-prisoners. We believe, however, that all human experience is of value and that all human experience has something to teach us.”

In the last article, a community of women, street workers, share stories and images of survival on the perilous streets of the inner city. Moshoula Capous-Desyllas, a researcher teaching at the School of Social Work at Portland State, explains how creative and participatory research, particularly with marginalized groups, can lead to change and affect practice. “ The images and voices of sex workers in this study hold several implications for social work practice, policy and research. The social work profession has a history of not taking into account the voices of sex workers when creating programs to meet their needs. From a practice perspective, the use of photography allows sex workers to identify and creatively represent their needs and aspirations, thus informing social service design and delivery.”

The book “Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change” will be of special interest to university based educators; artists and researchers; facilitators; practitioners; educators in the social sciences; social work and social justice advocates; activists, community change agents; heritage and cultural workers; urban planners; healthcare professionals; public health educators; fundraisers and many others.

For more information or to order this book visit http://www.ijcaip.com

order directly online at this website. See rt. sidebar.

END

Collage from October 15

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"Living Signage"
C. McLean
collage from photos taken during October 15, Occupy Toronto protest

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

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First look at the book "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", cover by designer James Dangerous, Detselig
Enterprises.

"Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" is the second book in the CAIP Research Series and features illustrative articles describing the creative arts in research and practice within neighbourhoods, villages and cities for community and cultural change.

We expect many will be transformed by what they witness through these accounts and a few might be inspired to take action launching new initiatives and igniting change for the betterment of communities, for the life of our cities and those who call them home. In these times of desperate need and ongoing unrest internationally, this research collection, featuring leaders across disciplines is a valuable source of information as well as a call for creative new approaches in contemporary research leading to action and change.”

The articles in this book will be of special interest to university based educators; artists and researchers; facilitators; practitioners; educators in the social sciences; social work and social justice professionals; activists and community change agents; heritage, cultural and urban planners; healthcare professionals and public health educators; fundraisers and many others.

Creative Arts for Community and Cultural Change is a research book that provides first hand insights into evolving and participatory processes unique to the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice (CAIP) as well as a wealth of information and examples for relevant in-depth dialogue and debate.

COMING SOON!

Introducting Editors CAIP Research Series

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Editor

Cheryl McLean MA is an independent scholar and educator and Founder, Publisher and Executive Editor of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP and Editor of The CAIP Research Series and books, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice Inquiries for Hope and Change" (August 2010) and "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" (for release October 2011) Associate Editor, Dr. Robert Kelly, University of Calgary, Published by Detselig Enterprises Inc., Calgary, Alberta).

Cheryl McLean has a background in journalism, social science, community education and arts and mental health. (BA, Social Science, University of Western Ontario, London) (MA , Faculty of Fine Art, CAT, Concordia University, Montreal). As an actor and while doing graduate work she also studied in projects for two years (Stanislavski,realism) under the mentorship of Dr. Muriel Gold, formerly the Artistic Director of the Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Montreal. Her research and group therapy work took place with low income seniors in an "over 60 community mental health programme" at Maimonides Jewish Geriatric Hospital and the Rene Cassin Institute of Social Gerontology. She wrote and performed the "ethnodrama" "Remember Me for Birds" based on data gathered in research and true stories (a number of her clients were Holocaust survivors) and toured the educational performance raising awareness about aging, mental health and autonomy in keynote solo presentations for national conferences, universities and medical schools in Canada and the U.S. The work was produced as an educational film in 2006.

An agent of change and longtime arts advocate, as publisher of IJCAIP and Editor of the CAIP Research Series, Cheryl McLean continues to publish new research in the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice and has presented to audiences across Canada contributing to education and knowledge in the emerging international field raising awareness about the vital role the arts have to play for hope and change in communities worldwide. She has taught the course "Creative Responses to Death and Bereavement" at The University of Western Ontario, London and facilitates creative arts for community change workshops for health professionals and others across disciplines at The Windermere Manor (UWO), London. She continues to be an active member of the London arts community with special interests in writing, acting and contemporary theatre.
She is currently researching and writing the third volume in the CAIP research series, VOICE, Transforming cities through citizen stories and the arts in action
CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

Associate Editor

Robert Kelly Ph.D., Associate Editor CAIP Research series is a leader in Canada in creativity in practice, an artist and educator as well as an author writing about creativity processes in action. Robert Kelly is an associate professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, and an adjunct associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary where he teaches creativity theory and practice, studio art and curriculum theory and design. Robert’s research is focused on the concept of creativity and its applications for educational practice. Of particular research interest is the nature of idea generation and the development of supporting environments and practice. His recent book Creative Expression, Creative Education (co-edited with Carl Leggo, University of British Columbia) presents the case for creativity as a primary rationale for education. His new book "Educating for Creativity" will be released December 2011.

His creativity research, through his Creativity Education Project, extends to the development of courses on creativity and educational practice and personal creative development for graduate and undergraduate students and the general public.

Robert received his undergraduate training in education at the University of Western Ontario followed by master’s graduate work in art education at the University of Victoria and doctoral work in education at the University of Calgary.

Robert Kelly has been a featured keynote speaker at lectures and workshops across Canada speaking on creativity theory and practice across disciplines.Visit Robert Kelly's website

New book to be released in Fall 2011

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Coming Soon!

To be released Fall 2011!

From the book Introduction:

The book "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" Editor, Cheryl McLean, Associate Editor, Dr. Robert Kelly, University of Calgary, published by Detselig Enterprises Ltd., Calgary, is a project of The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP. Publishing activities at IJCAIP have contributed significantly to propagating a new and fertile knowledge base for research and information about the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice for community change. In the first book in the CAIP Series, “Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change”, released August 2010, it was our intention to show, by way of example, the considerable breadth and scope of the research. The book was a varied and multifaceted collection of creative research in action, an accessible academic text that introduced readers to new inquiries and processes while offering first hand insights into approaches.

“Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change”, the second text in the series, takes a global perspective featuring projects that have used the creative arts applied in research for community and cultural change. The articles in this second volume have been divided into four thematically related sections:

Community Action and Education through Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice; Images for Witness, Community Action in Disability and Health; Arts Exploring Immigrant Experience and Cultural Identities; Human Stories “from the outside in” for Community and Cultural Change.

Many of the researchers, artists, educators, participants and community members you will read about in these accounts strive for change by joining together in interdisciplinary projects to address the most fundamental of human needs, the need for a healthy and safe communities with water to drink and air to breathe, the need for human expression and connection, the desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a human being of value and to voice their personal stories for witness whether it is from a stage, a study circle, a kitchen table or to be experienced in the photographs of a community of women, street workers, recording their stories of survival on the perilous streets of the inner city.

There is hope for change within these pages as we learn about the day to day lives of those who live on the margins, those whose stories are seldom heard. As Liz Day and John J. Guiney Yallop express so eloquently in the article, Four Poems for Four Lives, A Study of Four Ex-prisoners through Poetic Inquiry, “We believe that all human experience is of value and that all human experience has something to teach us.” For me, this statement became a touchstone, at times guiding the editing journey, an underlying theme I often referred to in the shaping of this volume.

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change is fundamentally a book about the arts in action and practice, about people and communities making a difference through arts processes and democratic change. It may be true that we are shaped by culture and yet as is clearly evidenced by the articles in this book culture itself can be artfully shaped and re/formed within communities by the hands of the people who daily transform it.

We hope you will learn from these articles, we expect many will be transformed by what they witness through these accounts and a few might be inspired to take action themselves launching new initiatives and igniting change for the betterment of places, for the life of our cities and all who call them home and because they believe in the arts and all that communities, in action, together, can accomplish.

Our journey continues.

Cheryl McLean, Editor

A book illustrating the arts in action for change

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from book Introduction, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change"

C. McLean

Culture at its best can be an enriching bond, grounding groups socially around the historical character of people and place, rooting peoples around the distinctive and often inherited preferences that create the comforts of identity, the particularities of home, the communal fulfillment of a place living and functioning at its most enriched best. And yet, culture can turn home into an unwelcome place, ties into the bonds of bondage, culture closing in on itself to protect the standards it has invented and preserved, a restrictive and resistant imprisoning notion, a place of unreasonable expectation and intolerant conformity… a verdict rather than an opportunity for connection and a rich, diverse and socially cohesive life for all its citizens.

The arts offer their emancipatory potential as they work ..with, in and through communities to help raise awareness about the lives of all our citizens and open minds to the possibilities of change. I have personally experienced the embodied and transformative impact of the arts for social change. In my graduate research at Concordia University, Montreal, I worked as a group therapist with older persons in residential housing in an Over 60 mental health programme for two years. I wrote an ethnodrama script, “Remember Me for Birds” based on data gathered in sessions and client stories and narratives and performed this research as a solo actor at universities and national conferences. My goal was to reflect the culture in a provocative script grounded in real life happenings in order to create a performance that might raise awareness about issues compromising individual freedom and autonomy for older persons living in low income supportive living housing.

One audience member who worked with older clients at the centre as an elder abuse researcher reflected in his feedback what he experienced as a cultural reality and an attitudinal shift.

“There is a paternalism with regard to “the elderly”. This often results in their autonomy being assumed to be less than it is or taken away against their will. I learned I am inappropriately detached from people. I came. I attended because I was curious and I am glad I came. I learned about others but it (the performance) taught me about myself.”

The book , Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change is an ambitious publishing project which has been launched by *The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP, and is the second text in Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice (CAIP) Research Series, Editor, Cheryl McLean, Associate Editor, Robert Kelly, to be published by Detselig Temeron Press, Calgary. The first volume illustrated the considerable breadth and scope of the research in this new and emerging field. Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change features informative and thought provoking articles describing applications of the creative arts in research within neighborhoods, villages and cities integrated in distinctive ways to help investigate, explore, articulate and communicate research findings while working actively within and beyond borders to foster community and cultural change. In this action oriented collection qualitative research and community based and participatory methods play a major role as well as other experiential approaches.

The articles in this volume have been divided into four thematically related sections:

Human Stories “from the outside in” for Community and Cultural Change.

Many of the researchers, artists, educators, participants and community members you will read about in these accounts strive for change by seeking to address the most fundamental of human needs, the need for a healthy and safe community with water to drink and air to breathe, the need for human expression and connection, the desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a human being of value and to voice their personal stories for witness whether it is from a stage, a study circle, a public demonstration, at a kitchen table, from inside a prison cell or to be experienced in the photographs of a community of women, street workers, recording the stories of their lives and dreams, on the perilous streets of the inner city.

Jan Selman, Professor, Department of Drama, University of Alberta, was the lead researcher on the project “Are We There Yet” a participatory play created by artists and health educators out of a sense of urgency about the need for more effective sexuality education for teens. The play was adapted, produced and evaluated in several Canadian centres. She writes about the power of performance in work for social change:

“In creating and using art for change, activist artists bring their aesthetic taste and expertise as well as their social and educational agenda to their projects. We believe that creating art about our world makes a difference as art seeks to touch people at their core.”

Other contributors express a similar sentiment and attest to the value of sharing and learning from human experience. In the article, “Four Poems for Four Lives, A Study of Four Ex-Prisoners through Poetic Inquiry”, Liz Day and John J. Guiney Yallop write, “We believe that all human experience is of value and that all human experience has something to teach us.”

In a photograph with a quote featured in this book by artist, "Merry Mag", a sex worker living and working in Portland Oregon, and a participant in a photovoice project led by Moushoula Capous- Desyllas, a social work educator at Portland State University, "Merry Mag" expresses an appeal for understanding. An image can been seen of a woman kneeling in front of a headstone, head lowered. She is blindfolded, her mouth taped, hands bound.

“It is a tribute to them (murdered sex workers) in honour of their memory and of my pain. When I look at this image of the tape over my mouth it’s like I couldn’t talk about it. I had to just go out there and turn tricks after finding out that my friends had just died.”

In this contemporary collection, we present compelling evidence that the arts not only matter today, but are essential for the very survival of our communities and the healthy future of all of our citizens. We also share in these accounts research and stories that show how the arts are empowering communities to act as they seek to discover creative solutions to address critical social challenges. The arts in action can uniquely provide expressive opportunities for individuals to communicate and transfer knowledge beyond borders, igniting communities in common purpose while offering creative ways for the marginalized to express their stories. The arts can reach out to our communities and open minds to truth and hearts to understanding. Here, in the many research accounts in this book, in what these stories teach us, you will find evidence for change. In each inspiring story of the arts in action hope lives and the creative opportunity for societal and cultural transformation can begin.

Contributor List, Leading Researchers Featured in Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

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There are over forty contributors to the book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Editor Cheryl McLean, Associate Robert Kelly, published by Detselig Enterprises and among them are leading researchers working across disciplines for change.

About the Book

Excerpts

Table of Contents

Editors

Just a few of our excellent contributors
.....to the book
Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

In the list below we have featured just a few of the contributors. Their varied backgrounds reflect the diversity of their interests in research and community action and their interdisciplinary approaches to the arts in research.

Jan Selman, Professor, Department of Drama, University of Alberta directs and facilitates many professional and community-based theatre projects. Much of her early theatre work was based with Catalyst Theatre where she was artistic director for its first eight years. Based in her practice, she co-wrote and edited the book, Popular Theatre in Political Culture: Britain and Canada in Focus with Tim Prentki. Recent publications are in Routledge’s Applied Theatre Reader, Canadian Theatre Review, and Adult Education Quarterly. A specialist in participatory theatre, recent work includes: co-facilitating Transforming Dangerous Spaces, which used theatre to explore coalition across difference in women’s activist communities, and leading the Are We There Yet? research program.

Valerie Triggs is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. Her area of research focuses on exploring the ways in which arts based educational events extend classically scientific modes of research.

Rita L. Irwin is a Professor of Art Education and Associate Dean of Teacher Education in the Faculty of Education at The University of British Columbia. Although she may be best known for her work in developing a form of arts based educational research called A/r/tography, she is also well known for her leadership roles in professional organizations. Most notably, she is the current President of the International Society for Education through Art and serves on the Presidential Council of the World Alliance for Arts Education.

Ruth Beer is an Associate Professor and former Head of Visual Arts at Emily Carr Institute. She has exhibited her sculptures and photographs widely including solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Western Front, the Contemporary Art Gallery as well as other galleries throughout Canada, Japan, and the United States. Her practice centres around issues of consumer culture and workplace environment.

Stephanie Springgay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on curriculum theory, relational art practices, gender and youth studies, embodiment, feminist pedagogy and justice-oriented education. In addition, as a multidisciplinary artist working with installation and video-based art, she investigates the relationship between artistic practices and methodologies of educational research. She is currently co-editing the book M/othering a Bodied Curriculum: Theories and Practices of Relational Teaching with Debra Freedman and Natalie Jolly; is the co-editor of Curriculum and the Cultural Body, Peter Lang (2007) with Debra Freedman; and the author of Body Knowledge and Curriculum: Pedagogies of touch in youth and visual culture, Peter Lang (2008). Her work has also appeared in such journals as Qualitative Inquiry, Studies in Art Education, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, and the Alberta Journal of Educational Research. Currently, Dr. Springgay is a co-investigator on a Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research and creation grant. This is a large-scale study that explores community-based relational art practices in sites such as India, Argentina, Cape Breton Nova Scotia and Toronto. The study is an artistic inquiry into walking as a bodily way of knowing, as a political act, and as a form of corporeal public pedagogy. The study is situated to bring together a team of scholars and artists in the visual arts and education, bridging the gap between creative and interpretive disciplines, to examine the implications of walking as an aesthetic act.

Kit Grauer is Associate Professor of Art Education and Curriculum Studies at The University of British Columbia. She has been involved in National and International organizations in Art Education and presented and published widely in this area winning numerous awards for teaching and research.

Gu Xiong an associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory at The University of British Columbia. As a multi-media artist he works with painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, performance art, and installation. His work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the China National Museum of Fine Arts among many other museums and private collections. He has received significant critical recognition including reviews in international art magazines: Flash Art, Art in America, and The New York Times. His practice centres on hybrid identity creation arising from the integration of different cultural origins.

Carolina González Schlenker MD MPH came to the US as an exchange medical student and after three years returned to Mexico. She did an internship in general medicine at an urban hospital with the Mexican Ministry of Health in her home town of Tampico. She worked in community medicine in the highlands of Chiapas for two years in Tojolabal Mayan Indian communities training health promoters and practicing primary care. She was co-founder and first president of the Latino Health Organization in 1994. In Utah she obtained a masters in public health with a concentration in quality of care. In Wisconsin in 2000 she was active in community-based participatory research. She uses theatre to engage community members and activate capacities that protect the health of immigrants. She is currently a post doctoral fellow in health disparities at the Center for Women’s Health Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her main research interest is creating informational tools that can serve as a bridge between primary care providers and people´s experience of disease. She is married to Tom Schlenker, MD, MPH and has three sons.

Gloria E. Sarto, MD, PhD is a Professor in the University of Wisconsin, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and past Co-Director of the UW Center for Women’s Health Research and was the first woman to be appointed president of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society. Dr. Sarto has been active with several community programs and has been a local and national leader to increase awareness on health disparities. She was part of the editorial board of Unequal Treatment, a publication of the Institute of Medicine presenting evidence of the inequity that minorities face in health care settings. She is mentor and PI on an NIH funded T32: Health Disparities Research Scholars Program. Dr. Sarto serves on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Genome Resources. She is the recipient of the American Medical Women's Association Distinguished Career Award, the 2001 University of Wisconsin Medical Alumni Award and the 2004 YWCA Woman of Distinction Award.

B. Stephen Carpenter, II is Professor of Art Education at Penn State University. He is author/co-author of numerous scholarly articles that have appeared in journals such as Art Education, Ceramics: Art and Perception, Computers in the Schools, Educational Leadership, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, The Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, The Journal of Visual Literacy, Studies in Art Education, and Visual Arts Research. He has also authored/co-authored numerous book chapters in art education, visual culture, and curriculum theory. In addition, he is co-author of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Art in High School (2006), and co-editor of Curriculum for a Progressive, Provocative, Poetic, and Public Pedagogy (2006). His mixed media installations and performance artworks have been exhibited in regional, national, and international exhibitions. Carpenter was editor of Art Education, the journal of the National Art Education Association (2004-2006) and is co-editor of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy [2] (2010-). His funded projects include the Texas Governor’s School in Arts and Humanities for Urban Leadership [3]; the Ensemble Computing Portal [4]; the TAMU Water Project [5]; and, the Glasscock Island Digital Humanities and Visual Culture Education and Research Island in Second Life Project [6]. Previously, he has held faculty positions at Texas A&M University (2005-2010), Virginia Commonwealth University (2002-2004), and Old Dominion University (1995-2001). Carpenter holds a B.F.A. degree in Visual Art from Slippery Rock University and M.Ed. and Ph.D. degrees in Art Education from Penn State University.

Bryan O’Neil Boulanger is an assistant professor of environmental engineering in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University. Dr. Boulanger has performed research and served as a consultant on environmental and engineering issues pertaining to water and wastewater treatment since 2001. In recognition of his contributions to his field, Bryan was awarded a Bronze Medal for Commendable Service from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2006 and an EPA Mission Award from the Office of Pollution, Prevention, and Technology in 2007. Bryan’s research and writings have been published in Journals such as Environmental Science and Technology, Chemosphere, Journal of Environmental Management, Journal of Environmental Monitoring, and the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Steroids & Hormonal Sciences and on peer-consultation panels for EPA. Bryan holds undergraduate and master’s of science degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Iowa.

Oscar J. Munoz’s professional and dedicated leadership has spanned for more than 15 years, as he has provided successful implementation and direction in various programs encouraging educational pursuits and benefiting humanitarian causes. Muñoz is Deputy Director of the Colonias Program for the Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas A&M University. This program aims to improve the quality of life of the residents of impoverished rural and urban Hispanic communities. The newest project undertaken by the Colonias Program is the development of a training academy with a focus on professional development and promotora/community health worker training. The Texas State Department of Health Service certified curriculum is comprised of eight core competencies, cancer survivorship, and healthy exercise programs, and provides certified education for promotoras/ community health workers. Muñoz has previously served as Director of Continuing Education for Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas and as Associate Director for the Central Rio Grande Region Colonias Program.

Judith Marcuse, LL.D. (Hon.) is Artistic Producer, Judith Marcuse Projects, and Founder/Co-Director of The International Centre of Art for Social Change and Fellow, Centre for Dialogue is an Adjunct Professor, Simon Fraser University. Judith Marcuse has had a distinguished career as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and producer in work for dance, theatre, opera, television and film. Her commitment to the marriage of artistic excellence and social relevance and her passion to integrate art in community life is at the core of her work in the theatre, the lecture hall, behind and in front of the camera and in her writing. Among her many honours she has received Canada's two major choreographic awards, the Chalmers (1976) and the Cliford E. Lee (1978). In 2000 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. Richard Marcuse is a social anthropologist and Consulting Manager, Judith Marcuse Projects

John J. Guiney Yallop PhD is a parent, a partner, and a poet. After completing his doctoral studies where he wrote poetry to explore emotional landscapes, identities, and communities, John accepted an appointment to the School of Education at Acadia University.

Peter Mbago Wakholi BSc., BEd, M.Ed. is originally from Uganda, Peter migrated to Australia with his family in 1991. Before coming to Australia, he worked as a high school teacher in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia following his graduation from Makerere University in Uganda (1984). Peter currently works with the Education Department in Western Australia as a high school teacher and is pursuing a PhD through the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Murdoch University on “Negotiating Cultural Identity through the Arts”. Peter holds an M.Ed Research from Murdoch University. His master’s research project centred on ‘African Cultural Education: A dialogue with the African Migrant Youth in Western Australia’. He also holds a Graduate Certificate in Professional Learning and a B.Ed from Edith Cowan University; and a BSc from Makerere University in Uganda. Peter is the author of “African Cultural Education and the African Youth in Western Australia: Experimenting with the Ujamaa Circle” (Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag, 2008), as well as several refereed and magazine articles in the area of African cultural education. His research interests include migration and cultural identity – in particular the role of African cultural knowledge – and the use of arts-based approaches in strengthening the cultural identities of African youth. In addition, he is also a practising artist and a cultural education facilitator.

Peter Wright Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer in Arts Education and Research Methods, and Academic Chair of Research and Postgraduate Studies, School of Education at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. He is an active researcher and works across the arts with a commitment to personal, social and cultural inquiry, development, education and expression. Peter’s research interests include teaching, learning and healing in, through, and with the Arts; Arts-informed approaches to research; Participatory Arts, Drama Education; Applied Theatre; Transformational learning; Teacher development in the Arts, and Playback Theatre. Recently Peter acted as an editor for a special themed issue of Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research on Performative Social Science, a reviewer for Qualitative Inquiry in Education, and the E-journal of UNESCO Observatory: Multi-Disciplinary Research in the Arts. Peter is a member of the International Arts Education Research Network (Australia Council for the Arts/UNESCO), and the UNESCO LEA (Links to Education and Art) International Network of Experts in Arts Education.

Todd J. Sojonky holds a Ph.D. from the Educational Psychology program at the University of Regina (Canada). He is a registered doctoral psychologist with extensive experience in marriage and family counselling rooted in a transpersonal and relational approach to healing. Todd is well known for his motivational presentations and workshops. He has extensive clinical experience in the mainstream healthcare system and with the First Nations people throughout Canada. He is a sessional lecturer at the University of Regina and operates a private practice in marriage and family therapy. He has recently released a new book: Sojonky, T. (2010) A self-study: Being a White Psychologist in an Indian World, Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

Moshoula Capous Desyllas, PhD, is faculty member of the School of Social Work at Portland State University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in anti-oppression, social justice and diversity, and human behavior in the social environment. Her interests include arts-based research methods, community-based participatory action research, community organizing and advocacy, social work with immigrants, trans-global migration issues, commercial sex work and intersecting oppressions. She is committed to facilitating community dialogue and deeper understanding about issues of diversity and social justice through art. Her passion lies in highlighting the voices of marginalized communities through the use of art as activism and empowerment. Beginning in August 2011, she will join the faculty of the Sociology Department as an Assistant Professor at California State University, Northridge.

Pam Patterson (PhD) has, for over 25 years, been active in the art and women’s communities. Her research, performance and teaching have focused on embodiment in art practice, the body in art, disability studies, women and gender studies, and feminist art education with publications in journals such as: Studies in Art Education, Resources for Feminist Research, and Matriart: A Canadian Feminist Art Journal. Her book, Enacting Learning: An Arts–Informed Inquiry for/with the Bay Area Artists for Women’s Art (BAAWA) was released fall 2010. She is currently Associate Scholar, and Director for the interdisciplinary arts program WIAprojects, for the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her current research project is examining, with a diverse team of students, advisors, artists, access specialists and learning strategists, the development of a position of “Creative Enabler” for arts educational institutions. Patterson also teaches at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU) and the University of Toronto-Scarborough. As a performance and visual artist she was a founding member of FADO Performance and ARTIFACTS and has exhibited and performed internationally.

Heather McLeod Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education (art education) Memorial University, Newfoundland. The research for this paper stems from her doctoral work in Victoria, British Columbia as well as from teaching in St. John’s. Her experience in education is wide-ranging, involving work at various levels in the K-12 school system in diverse locales across Canada with multiple stakeholders. Her broad research interests include education through the arts; art and social justice; issues of culture and history; narrative approaches to learning, teaching and research; critical pedagogy; feminist analysis; pre-service teacher-education - identity construction and multi-genre scholarship She pursues an interpretive/critical research and pedagogical orientation. Hr current projects also include research about teacher self-presentation through dress.

Jill B. Jacoby PhD MS MSEL completed her doctorate in Leadership & Change from Antioch University. Her studies focused on environmental leadership and sustainability and her dissertation focused on the use of study circles with artists as a catalyst for environmental leadership and change. Jill also has a Masters degree in Water Resources from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Studies in Environmental Law from the Vermont Law School. She is currently an adjunct professor in Sustainable Development with the University of Wisconsin - Superior, an adjunct professor in Environmental Topics with the College of St. Scholastica (Duluth, MN) and an adjunct professor in Environmental Studies with Fairleigh Dickinson University (NJ). In 2002 she founded, and is the Executive Director of, Sweetwater Alliance, a non-profit organization with a mission to raise water literacy through the arts and science. Her current project is to build an artistically and ecologically designed water garden to treat stormwater runoff and educate the public about the values of wetlands.

Mary Harber-Iles—BA, BSW, MSW

Mary has worked in a variety of areas during her social work career during the last 24 years. She has supported children, youth and their families in the context of child welfare, clinical work around sexual abuse, healthy sexuality and children and youth with disabilities, parent support and youth addiction issues. She has worked primarily in the area of health promotion and prevention for addiction issues. During the last 10 years Mary has been teaching in the School of Social Work and Human Services at Thompson Rivers University. She has developed curriculum for a course certificate in the area of FASD/addiction at Thompson Rivers University and was recently involved in working with a First Nations Community around the area of addiction prevention supporting the community to develop action planning from a cultural context. In terms of using art as context for change, Mary has initiated a number of ―Re-constructing Barbie body image workshops for young women in the community, worked using art with youth with disabilities and is currently supporting the development of a youth theatre group for transitioning youth with FASD. She has also presented both at National and International conferences and has helped to initiate and sustain a community action group around FASD prevention and continues to support community advocacy.

Table of Contents Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

2011-03-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1

Community Action and Education through

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice

Participatory Theatre for Change Road Testing Cultural Adaptations

Jan Selman, Shaniff Esmail, Jane Heather, Brenda Munro

Re/Searching for Clean Water Artists, Community Workers and Engineers

in Partnership for Positive Community Change

B. Stephen Carpenter II, Oscar Munoz, Marissa Munoz,

Cory Arcak, Angela Cornelius, Bryan Boulanger

Artists, Action and Circles of Change, Raising Awareness About Community Water Issues

Jill B. Jacoby

Art for Social Change A Call for Partnerships

Judith Marcuse with Richard Marcuse

Weaving Provocations for Social Change, The International Fiber Collaborative

Courtney Weida with Jennifer Marsh

Socio-Drama Topography as a Participatory Method with Youth in South Africa

Stephen Sillett, Jennifer Jimenez, Muriah Umoquit

Art and Murals with First Nations on Reserve Youth in Saskatchewan

Transferring Knowledge and Enhancing Potential for Health

Sandra Bassendowski, Pammla Petrucka

Participatory Video and Collective Creative Action

Raising awareness about Racism, Education,

and Democracy through Video Making

Kwung-Hwa Yang

Part 2

Images for Witness and Community Action

in Disability and Health

Situating a Performative Research Practice for Action:

Discussing Three Evocative Performances for Change,

Travelling, Handle with Care? and FAT.

Pam Patterson

Territories of the Breast A Woman’s Cancer Journey, A Call for Human Rights

Sonia Baez Hernandez

Mixed Blessings: Using Zines in Research to Help Express

Young Women’s Experiences of Depression

Paula Cameron

A Community of Culture for Creative Expression

The Influence of Place for Artists with Disabilities

Denise Reid, Ellen Anderson

Part 3

Arts Exploring Immigrant Experience

and Cultural Identities

The City of Richgate A/r/tography and Multiplicity of Movement

in Nature, Culture and Public Pedagogy

Valerie Triggs, Rita L. Irwin, Ruth Beer, Stephanie Springgay, Kit Grauer, Gu Xiong

The Art of Migrant Lives, Bicultural Identity and the Arts

The African Cultural Memory Youth Arts Festival in Western Australia

Peter Mbago Wakholi, Peter Wright

Images of Home in Officer, Australia

A Sound Based Community Cultural Development Research Project

Dean Merlino, Michelle Duffy

House Very Strong, “I think we were happy here”

Six Families, One House and the Life of an Arts Based Research Project

Heather McLeod

The Transparency of Waiting . . .

Women as Asylum Seekers, Transferring Immigration Experience Through Artmaking

Julia Byers

Saber para la Gente (Knowledge for the People)

Using Storytelling and Participatory Theatre in a Latino Immigrant Community to Raise Awareness and Help Address Health Disparities

Carolina Gonzalez Schlenker, and Gloria E. Sarto

Part 4

Human Stories “from the outside in”

for Community and Cultural Change

Four Poems for Four Lives

A Study of Four Ex-Prisoners through Poetic Inquiry

Liz Day, John J. Guiney Yallop

A Personal Narrative

Being a Good Psychologist in an Indian World . . .

Using Narrative, Story and Poetry to Express the Changing Role of the Psychologist in Cross Cultural Settings

Todd Jeffrey Sojonky

Research for Aboriginal Women and Community Change

Through Video, Music, and Song

Colleen Dell

Unspoken Truths, Women, Mothers, Addiction

Art as Narrative and Finding Our Way

Mary Harber

Photovoice with Sex Workers for Community Awareness,

Empowerment and Resistance

Moshoula Capous-Desyllas

Are We There Yet?, Sex Education Subject of Participatory Theatre Project for Change

2011-03-10T07:49:00.000-08:00

Advance book previews,
Contributor quotes.....

Jan Selman

"This article discusses Are We There Yet?, a participatory play and workshop combination created by artists and health educators out of a sense of urgency about the need for more effective sexuality education for teens. The play uses the metaphor of learning to drive while it investigates and promotes safe and respectful expression of sexuality. A highly participatory theatre event, it works for and with its audience."

"If change rather than a crie de coeur is our goal, we must immerse ourselves in our audience's world and strive to create art which will touch specific audiences as deeply as possible. It follows that for artists with the intention of creating social or individual change, choices are to work "at home", creating work which speaks to people just like ourselves, or to enter into a process of deep listening, of participatory research, as we create work we hope will be relevant and transformative for our intended audience. This act of listening and translation is a bigger challenge than one might suppose."

"Context matters. Culture matters. In creating and using art for change, activist artists bring their aesthetic taste and expertise as well as their social and educational agenda to their projects. We believe that creating art about our world makes a difference, as art seeks to touch people at their core. However, as we work, it is imperative that we also engage with the specifics of the milieu in which we create. Where transformation is the goal, many artists choose to apply their art forms within education and other development processes. Why? In part we do this because we believe that to be meaningful, education (where education is understood in its broadest context, that is as a process of human development) must be deeply relevant to its participants."

Look for the full article in the soon to be released book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Editor Cheryl McLean, Associate Editor, Robert Kelly, Detselig Temeron Press.

Jan Selman is Professor and Chair in the Department of Drama at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her career has included freelance directing and new play development, as well as facilitation and direction of many community-based popular theatre projects. In the 1980s she was Artistic Director of Catalyst Theatre, described as, "perhaps the most innovative popular theatre company in North America" (Alan Filewod, Theatre History in Canada 10, 2). Recent publications include a co-written book, Popular Theatre in Political Culture: Britain and Canada in Focus (with Tim Prentki, Intellect, 2000) as well as articles for Convergence and Adult Education Quarterly. Recent direction includes Helen Edmondson's adaptation of A Mill on the Floss for Studio Theatre at U of A. Recent popular theatre work includes co-facilitation of Transforming Dangerous Spaces, a project which used theatre to investigate potentials for coalition across difference within women's activist communities. She is the Principal Investigator for the Are We There Yet? CURA.

Exploring African Youth Cultural Memory and the Australian Cultural Experience

2011-02-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

Advance book previews
contributor quotes....

“This chapter describes a research project conducted amongst Black youth of African migrant descent in Western Australia. The project had various components with one being a festival where African Australian young people used the arts to both inquire into their own lives, and share them with others….”

“The African cultural memory youth arts festival (ACMYAF) functioned as both a research inquiry and cultural event in the way that it provided young people with an empowering space for exploring issues relating to their cultural identities both performatively and educatively. The outcomes were informative to both Arts Based Educational Research (ABER) approaches and bicultural socialisation of the African Australian youth. ABER along with an African centered pedagogical approach provided important frameworks for exploring African cultural memory and the Australian cultural experience of the African Australian youth in an educative and informative way.”

Peter Mbago Wakholi, Peter Wright

look for the complete article in the upcoming book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change"

Peter Mbago Wakholi, M.Ed. BSc., BEd. is originally from Uganda, Peter migrated to Australia with his family in 1991. Before coming to Australia, he worked as a high school teacher in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia following his graduation from Makerere University in Uganda (1984). Peter currently works with the Education Department in Western Australia as a high school teacher and is pursuing a PhD through the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Murdoch University on “Negotiating Cultural Identity through the Arts”. Peter holds an M.Ed Research from Murdoch University. His master’s research project centred on ‘African Cultural Education: A dialogue with the African Migrant Youth in Western Australia’. He also holds a Graduate Certificate in Professional Learning and a B.Ed from Edith Cowan University; and a BSc from Makerere University in Uganda. Peter is the author of “African Cultural Education and the African Youth in Western Australia: Experimenting with the Ujamaa Circle” (Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag, 2008), as well as several refereed and magazine articles in the area of African cultural education. His research interests include migration and cultural identity – in particular the role of African cultural knowledge – and the use of arts-based approaches in strengthening the cultural identities of African youth. In addition, he is also a practising artist and a cultural education facilitator.

Peter Wright Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer in Arts Education and Research Methods, and Academic Chair of Research and Postgraduate Studies, School of Education at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. He is an active researcher and works across the arts with a commitment to personal, social and cultural inquiry, development, education and expression. Peter’s research interests include teaching, learning and healing in, through, and with the Arts; Arts-informed approaches to research; Participatory Arts, Drama Education; Applied Theatre; Transformational learning; Teacher development in the Arts, and Playback Theatre. Recently Peter acted as an editor for a special themed issue of Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research on Performative Social Science, a reviewer for Qualitative Inquiry in Education, and the E-journal of UNESCO Observatory: Multi-Disciplinary Research in the Arts. Peter is a member of the International Arts Education Research Network (Australia Council for the Arts/UNESCO), and the UNESCO LEA (Links to Education and Art) International Network of Experts in Arts Education.

Ceramics and Research in Action for Potable Water

2011-02-11T07:15:00.000-08:00

This image is from a public pedagogy event on the campus of Texas A&M University in Fall 2007 and features a close up view of clay on the press ready to be formed into a filter. Image TAMU Water Project, photo Cory Arcak.

Advance book previews
contributor quotes....

B. Stephen Carpenter

Ceramics and Research in Action for Potable Water

"Our collaborative projects encompass a variety of research methodologies aimed at examining the social, cultural and environmental aspects of water's role in community health by using ceramic arts education as a means of community change."

"The TAMU Water Project operates out of a strength-based approach by working within existing contexts and with community residents, in order to more fully understand and prioritize next actions. In using the word research as a verb (to research with), rather than as a noun (to do research on), the power dynamic between researcher and researched becomes non-hierarchical. The TAMU Water Project has successfully demonstrated and utilized this approach to participant-led action research, or participatory arts-based research, as a means to lead innovation in ceramic water filter development through interdisciplinary work, successful non-hierarchical working relationships and positive community change." ( Look for the complete article by B. Stephen Carpenter and colleagues in our 2nd book in the CAIP Research Series "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Detselig Temeron Press, for release May 2011.)

See video clip

"Travelling"... A Photo Based Performative Study of Perceptions and Possibilities, Conversations on Performance, Disability and Health

2011-02-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

Advance book previews Contributor Quotes

Pam Patterson

"While not denying that there is some pleasure in what I do, pleasure per se is not my motivation. I am a woman with painful disabilities living with cancer challenges. Grappling with the means to survive, to thrive, to engage, to act is what drives me. "

"I wanted to reinvestigate my own photo-based performative work in order to consider the problematic of maker/viewer perception and the possibilities for social and cultural change. I focused first on Travelling, a web flash exhibition which depicted, through moving stills, my journey across different terrain and through changing seasons from London, UK, to Prince Edward County and Toronto, Ontario, and finally to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Travelling Body Worlds the title of the “performance” from which this exhibition was drawn, was actually a series of conversations on performance, disability, and health that I had with colleagues in Ontario, academics and access theatre professionals in London, and community health advocates in St. John’s."

"I “performed” these conversations while walking barefoot out through snow to the Toronto International Airport, standing on wet North London streets, wading in the Bloomfield Mill Pond, and hiking at the edge of a cliff in Newfoundland. As I was the photographer and the subject was me, the only part of me that I could consistently see to photograph was my feet. So the images used in the web flash exhibit are of my feet in these various settings. What is not visible though is the pain in my limbs and the exhaustion on my face. The conversations, the frustrations, and the elations are also not recorded. But, could Travelling allow for another way of reading performances of pain, suffering, and disability? Not everyone can see performances. Many are site specific and budget limitations can make touring difficult. Videos can be easily distributed and on-line images and sites provide greater access. Can these images recall the performance and/or enrich our understanding? "

Pam Patterson (PhD) is currently Director for the interdisciplinary arts program, WIAprojects and teaches at York University, the Ontario College of Art & Design and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She has, for 25 years, been active in the art and women’s communities. Her research, performance and teaching have focused on embodiment in art practice, the body in art, disability studies, women & gender studies, and feminist art education with publications in journals such as: Studies in Art Education, Resources for Feminist Research, Matriart: A Canadian Feminist Art Journal, FUSE, Fibrearts, Parachute and presentations in conferences such as: the Feminism and Art Conference (Toronto), History of Art Education Symposium (Penn State), and Moving Bodies, Embodying Movement: Exploring the Rhetoric of the Body (State University of New York, Brockport). She has taught for various institutions such as: Sheridan College, George Brown College, Ryerson Polytechnical University and the University of Toronto. As a performance and visual artist she was a founding member of FADO Performance and ARTIFACTS and has exhibited and performed internationally. For 2008/10, she presented a new exhibition/performance work, A Cellu(h)er Resistance: A Body with/out Organs? in a residency for FADO at XPACE Cultural Centre, Toronto, exhibited Travelling a digital exhibition for the Centre for Canadian Contemporary Art (CCCA), Fleishman Gallery and Art Seen (Educational Insights), and performed and exhibited Lighthousekeeping for ACEART INC. & Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art (Winnipeg).

Weaving Communities into Activism and Arts for Change

2011-02-07T19:11:00.000-08:00

Advance Book Previews Contributor Quotes....

"This chapter examines the merging of art and activism of The International Fiber Collaborative (IFC) founded by Jennifer Marsh. As a fellow artist and educator, I have participated in and researched multiple collaborative projects with Marsh and the IFC over the past few years.....I draw on portraiture methodology to describe the IFD's unique artistic and social relevance for pedagogy..."

"The individual and communal themes explored in each participant’s contribution to the Gas Station Project, The Tree Project, and the most recent Rocket Project are myriad, yet share an interest in social change. While *The International Fiber Collaborative projects are intentionally open-ended and include many diverse political and ideological responses; the shared message of community and activism proves a common thread. Further, the digital interplay of weblogging, linking, and online commentary allows a range of overlapping and divergent voices to coalesce in ways that transcend traditional, individual art-making and critical discourse. Though the original function of craft objects have utilitarian meanings, (such as a potholder or quilt), the purpose of an individual artist’s panel is often a uniquely personal and/or political expression. In this way, contemporary craft projects like the IFC engender social change while building layers of multifaceted community space and artistic dialogue."

Courtney Lee Weida with Jennifer Marsh

(look for the full article in the upcoming book "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change")

Courtney Lee Weida Ed.D., Ed.M. is Assistant Professor of Art Education Adelphi University, Garden City, N.Y.. She completed her doctorate in Art & Art Education at Columbia University Teachers College. She earned an Ed.M. from Harvard University, specializing in Museum Education. *The International Fiber Collaborative (IFC) was founded in 2007 by artist Jennifer Marsh. It is a non-profit organization that promotes global collaborative public art initiatives, a marriage of art & education. The IFC has accomplished two widely acclaimed projects. The first one being The Gas Station Wrap in 2008 in Syracuse, New York. The submitted artwork for this project came from individuals from 15 countries and 28 states. The Gas Station Wrap was the first of its kind and spurred international attention both through press and participants. The second project was The Interdependence Tree Project in 2009 in Huntsville, Alabama. The International Fiber Collaborative recent project is The Dream Rocket which aims to reach participants from over 100 countries and all 50 states.

See this youtube video of "The Gas Station" project by "The International Fiber Collaborative".

Ethnomethodological Approach and Theatre Shares New Knowledge about Immigrant Experience with the People

2011-02-06T07:11:00.000-08:00

Advance book previews
Contributor quotes.....

Carolina Gonzalez-Schlenker MD MPH
with Gloria E. Sarto MD Ph.D.

"The participants of Saber para la Gente (Knowledge for the People) were immigrants experiencing the erosion of traditional roles as part of their acculturation process to the U.S. This erosion evolved without their full awareness yet created an underlying level of uncertainty that when exacerbated by alienating circumstances triggered behaviors that put their health at risk. They were losing their nosotros, the common sense that gave meaning to their face to face daily activities, yet, they continued functioning under those circumstances, leaving untapped capacities to create new meaning. An ethnomethodological approach to inquiry allowed the study to reach the community at this meaning making level. Theatre provided the space-time for critical awareness where participants were able to reinterpret their context and redirect their behaviours. The conscious creation of certainty and trust at the micro-level of face to face interactions could prove to be an important vehicle to prevent health disparities."

(look for the full article in the upcoming book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change")

Carolina Gonzalez Schlenker MD MPH has worked for many years as a health advocate for Latinos and was co-founder and first President of the Latino Health Organization in 1994. She has worked in community medicine in the highlands of Chiapas in Tojolabal Mayan Indian communities training health promoters and practicing primary care. She has a Master in Public Health with a concentration on quality of care. She is currently a post doctoral fellow, health disparities at The Centre for Women's Health Research of University of Wisconsin- Madison.

Gloria E. Sarto MD PhD is a Professor at The University of Wisconsin Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and past Co-Director of the UW Center for Women's Health Research and was the first woman to be appointed President of The American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society. She has been a local and national leader to raise awareness about health disparities and was part of the editorial board of "Unequal Treatment," a publication of The Institute of Medicine presenting evidence of the inequity that minorities face in health care settings.

Arts Used as Potent Tools for Social Change

2011-02-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

Advance book previews
Contributor quotes......

Judith Marcuse, Richard Marcuse

FIRE…where there’s smoke

The ensemble, the JMP production, photograph by David Cooper

"In Canada and around the world, the arts are increasingly used as potent tools in social change and social innovation agendas, in poverty alleviation, health promotion and training, in many forms of education, in social justice, inter-cultural and environmental work and in many other settings. In the process of art making, diverse populations are engaged in imaginative expression helping to create insight and understanding, social cohesion, engagement, hope and new solutions. Whether the work creates employment, explores issues of racism, facilitates conflict resolution or HIV/AIDS stigma reduction, empowers women to assert their human rights, builds resilience in youth voices, strengthens marginalized communities, celebrates local histories, or simply provides new opportunities for expression and dialogue, art processes are highly effective tools for expanding and deepening knowledge and insight, for the creation of imaginative empathy and engagement and perhaps most importantly for engaging with the social issues themselves."

Judith Marcuse L.L.D. (Hon.) in collaboration with Richard Marcuse M.A., Cand. Phil.

(look for the complete article in the upcoming book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change")

Judith Marcuse has had a distinguished career as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and producer in work for dance, theatre, opera, television and film. Her commitment to the marriage of artistic excellence and social relevance and her passion to integrate art in community life is at the core of her work in the theatre, the lecture hall, behind and in front of the camera and in her writing. Among her many honours she has received Canada's two major choreographic awards, the Chalmers (1976) and the Cliford E. Lee (1978). In 2000 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University.

Judith Marcuse is Founder and Co-Director, International Centre for Art for Social Change, Adjunct Professor and Fellow, Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University. Richard Marcuse is a social anthropologist and Consulting Manager, Judith Marcuse Projects.

Art, Nature, Culture and Public Pedagogy

2011-01-31T17:28:00.000-08:00

Featured in the upcoming book

"Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change"

Leaders in Arts Based Educational Research

Advance book previews
Contributor quotes.........

"A/r/tographic inquiry attempts to add to sociocultural experience by finding the movement of experience already in the world, for example, in geologic processes or families in transition, processes that are one and the same movement, differentiated by the continual slip of time. "

"A/r/tography seeks to reflect back to the world its diversity and liveliness, by creating arrangements in which people can relate to one another in ways that are not already determined and by inviting participants into collaborative artmaking."

"The forward slashes in the word a/r/tography indicate the importance of working with the rich histories of each tradition of artist, researcher and teacher as well as at their limits as continguous thresholds. Artist, research and teacher are articulated together to retain the ecology and materiality of everyday living; not irrevocably opposed but like the past and present sharing different directions of the same movement."

Valerie Triggs, Rita L. Irwin, Ruth Beer, Stephanie Springgay, Kit Grauer and Gu Xiong

(look for full article in the upcoming book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change".)

Creating Art for our World Makes a Difference

2011-01-30T09:47:00.001-08:00

"Context matters. Culture matters. In creating and using art for change, activist artists bring their aesthetic taste and expertise as well as their social and educational agenda to their projects. We believe that creating art about our world makes a difference, as art seeks to touch people at their core. However, as we work, it is imperative that we also engage with the specifics of the milieu in which we create. Where transformation is the goal, many artists choose to apply their art forms within education and other development processes. Why? In part we do this because we believe that to be meaningful, education (where education is understood in its broadest context, that is as a process of human development) must be deeply relevant to its participants."

Look for the full article in the soon to be released book, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Editor Cheryl McLean, Associate Editor, Robert Kelly, Detselig Temeron Press.

Jan Selman is Professor and Chair in the Department of Drama at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her career has included freelance directing and new play development, as well as facilitation and direction of many community-based popular theatre projects. In the 1980s she was Artistic Director of Catalyst Theatre, described as, "perhaps the most innovative popular theatre company in North America" (Alan Filewod, Theatre History in Canada 10, 2). Recent publications include a co-written book, Popular Theatre in Political Culture: Britain and Canada in Focus (with Tim Prentki, Intellect, 2000) as well as articles for Convergence and Adult Education Quarterly. Recent direction includes Helen Edmondson's adaptation of A Mill on the Floss for Studio Theatre at U of A. Recent popular theatre work includes co-facilitation of Transforming Dangerous Spaces, a project which used theatre to investigate potentials for coalition across difference within women's activist communities. She is the Principal Investigator for the Are We There Yet? CURA.

(Look for full article by Jan Selman in the upcoming book "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change".)

Narrative and Story Enhances Understandings of Self in Practice

2011-01-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

Advance book previews
Contributor quotes....

Todd Sojonky

"Through narrative, story and poetry this article shows the importance of personal growth and informs the practice of being a "good psychologist". It asks the reader to consider how cross cultural experiences influence professional psychology discourse and practices as well as to explore the relationships between dominant psychology systems and cultural enactments. "

"As a starting point, I began writing narratives (personal stories, journal entries and poems) that focused on experiences and incidents in my work in First Nation communities. The self study I embarked on involved self as psychologist. By examining my motives, feelings, fears and interests in relation to my work as a psychologist in First Nations communities, I came to a better understanding of my "self" and was also able to enhance my practice and offer insights for others in "psychologist culture." ( Look for the complete article by Todd Sojonky in our 2nd book in the CAIP Research Series "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Detselig Temeron Press, for release May 2011.)

Todd Sojonky Ph.D., R.D., holds a Ph.D. from the Educational Psychology program at The University of Regina. He is a registered doctoral psychologist with extensive experience in marriage and family counselling rooted in a transpersonal and relational approach to healing. Visit Todd Sojonky's blog at http://www.sojonky.blogspot.com/
He has recently released a book, Sojonky, T. (2010). A self-study: Being a white psychologist in an Indian world. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

Previews, Quotes from Contributors, Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

2011-01-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

Contributor Previews, B. Stephen Carpenter

Ceramics and Research in Action for Potable Water

"Our collaborative projects encompass a variety of research methodologies aimed at examining the social, cultural and environmental aspects of water's role in community health by using ceramic arts education as a means of community change."

"The TAMU Water Project operates out of a strength-based approach by working within existing contexts and with community residents, in order to more fully understand and prioritize next actions. In using the word research as a verb (to research with), rather than as a noun (to do research on), the power dynamic between researcher and researched becomes non-hierarchical. The TAMU Water Project has successfully demonstrated and utilized this approach to participant-led action research, or participatory arts-based research, as a means to lead innovation in ceramic water filter development through interdisciplinary work, successful non-hierarchical working relationships and positive community change." ( Look for the complete article by B. Stephen Carpenter and colleagues in our 2nd book in the CAIP Research Series "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Detselig Temeron Press, for release May 2011.)

See video clip

Quotes of Note

2011-01-21T10:39:00.000-08:00

"The qualitative researcher may be described using multiple and gendered images; scientist, naturalist, fieldworker, journalist, social critic, artist, performer, jazz musician, filmmaker, quilt maker, essayist. the many methodological practices of qualitative research may be viewed as soft science, journalism, ethnography, quilt making or montage. The researcher, in turn, may be seen as a bricoleur, as a maker of quilts, or as in filmmaking, a person who assembles images into montages." Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, Sage 2007.photo c.mclean

"The business of art is rather to understand Nature and to reveal her meanings to those unable to understand. It is to convey the soul of a tree rather than to produce a fruitful likeness of a tree. It is to reveal the conscience of the sea, not to portray so many foaming waves or so much blue water. The mission of art is to bring out the unfamiliar from the most familiar." Kahlil Gibran

Announcing the 2nd text in the CAIP Research Series About the Book

2011-01-14T12:34:00.000-08:00

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change the second book in the CAIP Research Series, Publisher Detselig Temeron Press

With the successful release of the inaugural text in the CAIP Research Series, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice for Hope and Change, The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice is actively engaged in creating the 2nd text in the series, Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change, Editor Cheryl McLean, Publisher, International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP and Associate Editor Dr. Robert Kelly, Associate Professor, Faculty of Fine Art, University of Calgary.

This ambitious publishing project has been launched by The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice and is the second text in the groundbreaking Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice (CAIP) Research Series to be published by Detselig Temeron Press. Building on the fundamentals of Book 1, the inaugural text, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change, Book 2 in the CAIP Research Series, Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change, features informative and thought provoking articles describing applications of the creative arts in research within neighborhoods, villages and cities integrated in distinctive ways to help investigate, explore, articulate and communicate research findings while working actively within and beyond borders to foster change. In this action oriented collection, creative arts and community based, participatory approaches are featured as well as other methodologies. Taking a global perspective, the book explores creative arts in interdisciplinary practice for cultural and community change through hands on illustrative accounts, for example, the creative arts in research fostering peace and bridging communities, creative arts in research and action in community practice in addiction work, creative arts in research exploring issues of migration and racism, arts for community change addressing environmental issues, creative arts and its role in cultural change as well as discussing applications of the creative arts in many forms in practice in communities addressing critical health issues for improved quality of life.Articles raise questions and mobilize by example pointing to alternative forms of discovery and resolution through community action that challenges stereotypes of race, gender and identity. At a time of desperate need and ongoing unrest internationally, this important contemporary research text is a valuable source of information as well as a call for creative new approaches in contemporary research leading to meaningful action. Creative Arts for Community and Cultural Change provides first hand insights into evolving processes unique to the creative arts in research and interdisciplinary practice as well as a wealth of information and examples for in class review and highly relevant in-depth dialogue and debate.

Information CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

IJCAIP International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice website

http://www.ijcaip.com

2011-01-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

"You come on wings enchanted in such hunger for light you become the butterfly burnt to nothing."

Goethe, "Blessed Longing."

Introducing Editors CAIP Research Series

2011-01-02T15:42:00.000-08:00

Cheryl McLean M.A. is Publisher and Executive Editor of The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice and Editor of the CAIP Research Series and research texts, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" (August 2010) and "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" (for release October, 2011), Associate Editor Dr. Robert Kelly, published by Detselig Enterprises, Calgary. She has a background in journalism and Social Sciences (BA, Social Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London) and mental health and arts (MA, Faculty of Fine Art, CAT, Concordia, University, Montreal). She is an independent scholar, publisher and educator advancing the emerging field of the creative arts in research and interdisciplinary practice worldwide. In her research she created and performed the “ethnodrama” “Remember Me for Birds” based on true stories raising awareness about aging, mental health and autonomy. The solo performance was based on data gathered in research and groupwork (a number of her older clients were Holocaust survivors) She has performed the solo performance as a keynote for national conferences, universities and medical schools in Canada and the U.S. The work was produced as an educational film in 2006. An agent of change and longtime arts advocate Cheryl McLean has taught the course "Creative Responses in Death and Bereavement" at The University of Western Ontario, London, and in her work as a community educator has facilitated numerous seminars and workshops for health professionals which use story and performance to help professionals embody and express personal narratives for self awareness and community witness. She continues to help shape the emerging international field of the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice raising awareness about the vital role the arts have to play for hope and change in contemporary research and interdisciplinary practice. CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

Robert Kelly Ph.D., Associate Editor CAIP Research series is an artist and educator as well as an author writing about creativity processes in action. Robert Kelly is an associate professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, and an adjunct associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary where he teaches creativity theory and practice, studio art and curriculum theory and design. Robert’s research is focused on the concept of creativity and its applications for educational practice. Of particular research interest is the nature of idea generation and the development of supporting environments and practice. His recent book Creative Expression, Creative Education (co-edited with Carl Leggo, University of British Columbia) presents the case for creativity as a primary rationale for education.

His creativity research, through his Creativity Education Project, extends to the development of courses on creativity and educational practice and personal creative development for graduate and undergraduate students and the general public.

Robert Kelly has been a featured keynote speaker at lectures and workshops across Canada speaking on creativity theory and practice across disciplines.Visit Robert Kelly's website

About Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

2011-01-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change
Editor, Cheryl McLean Associate Editor, Robert Kelly
Detselig Enterprises, Calgary

“Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change”, the second text in the series, takes a global perspective featuring projects that have used the creative arts applied in research for community and cultural change. In this action oriented collection qualitative research and community based and participatory methods play a major role as well as other experiential approaches.

The articles in this second volume have been divided into four thematically related sections:

Part 1 Community Action and Education through Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice; Part 2 Images for Witness, Community Action in Disability and Health; Part 3 Arts Exploring Immigrant Experience and Cultural Identities; Part 4 Human Stories “from the outside in” for Community and Cultural Change.

Many of the researchers, artists, educators, participants and community members you will read about in these accounts strive for change by joining together in interdisciplinary projects to address the most fundamental of human needs, the need for healthy and safe communities with water to drink and air to breathe, the need for human expression and connection, the desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a human being of value and to voice their personal stories for witness whether it is from a stage, a study circle, a kitchen table or to be experienced at exhibits in public spaces in the photographs of a community of women, street workers, sharing images depicting stories of survival on the streets of the inner city.

There is hope for change within these pages as we learn about the day to day lives of those who live on the margins, those whose stories are seldom heard. As Liz Day and John J. Guiney Yallop express in the article, Four Poems for Four Lives, A Study of Four Ex-prisoners through Poetic Inquiry, “We believe that all human experience is of value and that all human experience has something to teach us.” For me, this statement became a touchstone, at times guiding the editing journey, an underlying theme I often referred to in the shaping of this volume.

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change is fundamentally a book about the arts in action and practice for hope and citizen empowerment, about people and communities making a difference through arts processes and democratic change. It may be true that we are shaped by culture and yet as is clearly evidenced by the articles in this book culture itself can be artfully shaped and re/formed within communities by the hands of the people who daily transform it.

Our journey continues.

C.L. McLean, Editor

This book will be available in 2011. Inquiries CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

A New Blog for the Second Book in the CAIP Research Series

2011-01-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

This is a new blog for the second text in the CAIP (Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice) Research Series, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" Editor Cheryl L. McLean, Associate Robert Kelly, Publisher Detselig Temeron Press.

Information about our first book in the CAIP Research Series, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change, Detselig Temeron Press, (August 2010) can be found at the CAIP Research Series BLOG at http://www.creat iveartpractice.blogspot.com
The book can be purchased directly from the website.

This was the cover for our first book in the CAIP Research series, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change. A very cool design by our designer/artist and" interdisciplinarian" James Dangerous of Detselig Temeron Press.