Synopses & Reviews
The new practice of art-based research uses art making as a primary mode of enquiry rather than continuing to borrow research methodologies from other disciplines to study artistic processes. Drawing on contributions from arts therapies, education, history, organizational studies, and philosophy, the essays critically examine unique challenges that include the personal and sometimes intimate nature of artistic enquiry and the complexities of the partnership with social science which has dominated applied arts research; how artistic discoveries are apt to emerge spontaneously, even contrary to plans and what we think we know; how truth can be examined through both fact and fiction as well as the interplay of objective and subjective experience; and ways of generating artistic evidence and communicating outcomes. Offering examples from all of the arts this volume will be welcomed by researchers and students in many fields.
Synopsis
A pioneering art therapist extolls the arts as a powerful tool in psychotherapy, describing how activating the imagination can heal the mind, heart, and soul The medicine of the artist, like that of the shaman, arises from his or her relationship to "familiars"--the themes, methods, and materials that interact with the artist through the creative process.
"Whenever illness is associated with loss of soul," writes Shaun McNiff, "the arts emerge spontaneously as remedies, soul medicine."
Art as Medicine demonstrates how the imagination heals and renews itself through this natural process. Author Shaun McNiff describes his pioneering methods of art therapy--including interpretation through performance and storytelling, creative collaboration, and dialoguing with images--and the ways in which they can revitalize both psychotherapy and art itself.
Synopsis
"Whenever illness is associated with loss of soul," writes Shaun McNiff, "the arts emerge spontaneously as remedies, soul medicine." The medicine of the artist, like that of the shaman, arises from his or her relationship to "familiars"—the themes, methods, and materials that interact with the artist through the creative process. Art As Medicine demonstrates how the imagination heals and renews itself through this natural process. The author describes his pioneering methods of art therapy—including interpretation through performance and storytelling, creative collaboration, and dialoguing with images—and the ways in which they can revitalize both psychotherapy and art itself.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-230) and index.
About the Author
Shaun McNiff is internationally recognized as a founder and leading figure in the arts and healing field. University Professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is past president of the American Art Therapy Association and the author of several other books including Art As Medicine, Trust the Process, and Creating with Others .
Table of Contents
Foreword, by Ross W. Prior
Preface, by Shaun McNiff
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Part I
Introduction to Part I
Opportunities and challenges in art-based research, by Shaun McNiff
Art as enquiry: Towards a research method that holds soul truth, by Pat B. Allen
Art-based enquiry: It is what we do!, by Mitchell Kossak
Mentoring and other challenges in art-based enquiry: You will figure it out, by Bruce L. Moon
Art-based research as a pedagogical approach to studying intersubjectivity in the creative arts therapies, by Nancy Gerber, Elizabeth Templeton, Gioia Chilton, Marcia Cohen Liebman, Elizabeth Manders and Minjung Shim
Performance as art-based research in drama therapy supervision, by Robert Landy, Marian Hodermarska, Dave Mowers and David Perrin
Where are the five chapters?: Challenges and opportunities in mentoring students with art-based dissertations, by Sally Atkins
The risks of representation: Dilemmas and opportunities in art-based research, by Jean Rumbold, Patricia Fenner and Janine Brophy-Dixon
Improvisation and art-based research, by Nisha Sajnani
Know thyself: Awakening self-referential awareness through art-based research, by Michael A. Franklin
The feeling of what happens: A reciprocal investigation of inductive and deductive processes in an art experiment, by Malcolm Learmonth and Karen Huckvale
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Part II
Introduction to Part II
A critical focus on art-based research, by Shaun McNiff
Frames of enquiry: Perplexity, self-integration, pregnant images, by Robert E. Innis
Expecting the unexpected: Improvisation in art-based research, by Stephen K. Levine
On creative writing and historical understanding, by Kelsey McNiff
On the seam: Fiction as truth and#150; what can art do?
A more complete knowing: The subjective objective partnership
Knowing what is known: Accessing craft-based meanings in research by artists, by Ross W. Prior
Art-based research for engaging not-knowing in organizations, by Ariane Berthoin Antal
Art as a mother tongue: Staying true to an innate language of knowing, by Tamar Einstein and Michele Forinash
Shall I hide an art-based study within a recognized qualitative framework? Negotiating the spaces between research traditions at a research university, by Tawnya D. Smith
Trusting the felt sense in art-based research, by Laury Rappaport
Painting research: Challenges and opportunities of intimacy and depth, by Barbara J. Fish
Capturing the transient, by Corinna Brown
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Index