Category Archives: RESEARCH PROJECTS

The Art of Healing follow-on: Impact and Engagement

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December 2022

The Art of Healing team have been successful in raising follow-on funds from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to take further afield the process initiated with children and teachers at Dolphin School Pulwama, Kashmir in 2020/21.

Following evaluation of the first project, this next stage will enhance its value and benefit through work with other communities elsewhere in the region and extend into other areas of conflict. The project is led by Dr. Michael Buser of University of West of England.

Creating a difference – a role for the arts in addressing child wellbeing in conflict-affected areas, an article written by the team and outlining the project process and findings, has been published in Arts & Health journal.

Arts in Regeneration: from creative community-led planning to institutional instrumentalism in East London

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Blog for the research project Spaces of HOPE: The Hidden History of Community Led Planning in the UK.

 

How can images and aesthetics support community led campaigns? In this blog, Loraine Leeson draws on her experiences with the Docklands Community Poster Project, describing how certain images can become a powerful ‘currency’ for communicating issues and arguments to wider audiences.

Full text

Kalakar Qasbah and the Art of Healing

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Webinar on the activities and findings of a recent Arts and Humanities/Global Challenges research project that has been supporting child wellbeing in areas of conflict through the arts

9:00 am to 12:00 pm UK (2:30 pm to 5:30 pm IST)

Wednesday 19th January 2022

Register:
 
Feel free to dip in and out… but please register in advance as the direct zoom link will be sent to registered attendees closer to the date.
 
 The event will explore how the arts are being used to support child wellbeing in a school in Kashmir, India. A series of short presentations will narrate the processes and outcomes of the recently concluded project The Art of Healing, funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council project. Discussions will be led by academics, artists, and local stakeholders who will provide insights into the role of the arts and art therapy to support healing and mental wellbeing for young people living in conflict-affected areas. Followed by discussion.
Art of Healing website:

Spaces of HOPE: The Hidden History of Community Led Planning 2021-24

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Spaces of Hope aims to produce the first sustained history of community-led planning in the UK documenting the diverse and previously hidden ways in which people have come together to care for the future of their local environments and exploring what their efforts mean for contemporary approaches to planning and participatory place-making.

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The Art of Healing in Kashmir: how creative activities can support child wellbeing in areas of conflict 2021-22

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Kashmir is the centre of both a geopolitical struggle between India and Pakistan and an indigenous independence movement, one of the most militarised areas in the world. Since 1989 more than 80,000 people have been killed and everyday life is marked by the presence of military, curfews, stone-pelting and demonstrations. Children are particularly vulnerable in militarised areas and healing trauma is central for sustainable peace.

Continue reading →

Hydrocitizenship 2014 – 17

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Hydrocitizenship was an AHRC-funded project which investigated and contributed to ways in which communities live with each other and their environment in relation to water in a range of UK neighbourhoods.

This 3 year project investigated and made creative contributions to the ways in which citizens and communities live with each other and their environment in relation to water in a range of UK neighbourhoods. The research asked a series of questions about what communities are, how they function, and the role of environmental (water) assets and issues in the coming together of communities, conflicts within and between communities, and progress to interconnected community and environmental resilience.

Active Energy: Three Mills formed part of the research in the Lee Valley.

Research Team

There were teams in Bristol, Lee Valley, Borth & Tal-y-bont (mid Wales) and Yorkshire, involving altogether eight universities.

Principal Investigator: Professor Owain Jones (Bath Spa University)

The Lee Valley Team was led by Professor Graeme Evans (Middlesex University)

Artist/consultants: Dr. Loraine Leeson and Simon Read (Middlesex University)

JAL! – a one-day seminar in Bristol, October 2018

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Culmination of an AHRC funded arts-community network project between UK and India addressing water scarcity in rural Rajasthan
https://rajasthanwater.weebly.com/

9:30 for 10am start – 4:00 pm
Friday 5th October 2018
M Shed
Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd
Bristol BS1 4RN
https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/

This one-day seminar will reflect on the potential and role of the arts and creative practice to address critical global challenges:

  • Where and how artists are engaging with social and environmental issues.
  • The challenges, opportunities and implications of accessing and engaging vulnerable individuals and communities through the arts.
  • How community-based arts can contribute to improvements in the welfare of those living in tenuous conditions.
  • Interdisciplinary challenges associated with bringing together science and arts perspectives in addressing critical social and environmental issues.

Presentations by Michael Buser, Loraine Leeson, MS Rathore, Nina Sabnani,
Anurupa Roy and Neelam Raina

REGISTER HERE

FREE, but places are limited

For further information contact Michael.Buser@uwe.ac.uk

JAL! Celebrating Cultures of Water in Rural Rajasthan 2017-18

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An AHRC funded project in collaboration with social scientist Dr. Michael Buser at University of West of England and Dr. Manohar Singh Rathore, Director, Centre for Environment and Development Studies, Jaipur.

The project explores how participatory arts practice can contribute to increased understanding of, and present solutions to, water scarcity in Rajasthan, India’s driest state, where environmental scientists have been struggling to get across this information. Puppeteer Anurupa Roy of Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust and artist/storyteller Professor Nina Sabnani from the IDC School of Design Mumbai, worked with villagers in the desert regions. The aim was to retrieve and re-introduce into the villages local knowledge on water conservation that had been lost for a generation. Nina Sabnani engaged traditional painters from the Shekhavati region to produce a mural and a travelling scroll to re-tell its story of water harvesting and how this could be revived.

Anurupa Roy worked with children who liaised with grandparents to produce a shadow puppet show to take around schools to inform local communities.