Sunday, March 13, 2011

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


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

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

Thursday, March 10, 2011

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





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.