"Arts-based research practices and alternatives: Reflections on workshops in Uganda and Bangladesh" by Ruth Kelly and Emilie Flower.
In July 2017, two groups of academics, artists and activists held research workshops in Kampala and in Dhaka to explore how art could help us imagine and inhabit new ways of being, feeling and knowing, opening space to begin to articulate alternatives. We worked from the premise that imagination is not just something we have; it's something we generate together, through shared experiences, languages and ideas; through image, stories, dance, and music. Tapping into the rich cultural and artistic heritage of the places we come from, participants used art to experience the world differently and to dream up visions of a more just and sustainable world. [...]
This working paper describes and reflect on the two three-day workshops in Kampala, Uganda and Dhaka Bangladesh. We explore whether and how arts-based research practices can disrupt dominant ways of knowing and performing ‘development,’ allowing activists and practitioners to explore different ways of knowing and to identify and articulate alternatives.
Safeguarding means protecting vulnerable people from harm, whether malicious or unintended, by believing and responding to concerns through a systematic approach.
In 2019-20, we’re developing a project to generate discussion of the issues around safeguarding, and move towards a mutual assessment of how best to ensure that safeguarding approaches work in context.
Follow the story of the project so far and meet Safeguarding Project Developer, Tony Cegielka and our 5 brilliant Regional Safeguarding Leads: Astrid Canas, Rajib Timalsina, Chaste Uwihoreye and Helene Rousseau.
Changing the Story has produced a series of short videos which address the various aspects of safeguarding in international development research. The aim of the series is to provide you with food for thought, and to help your project team reflect on safeguarding policies and procedures that are appropriate in your context.
A young participant in Kosovo recalls how she was first introduced at the age of 12 to the subject of human trafficking.
The final #ImaginingOtherwise project is an Arts Activism toolkit. This toolkit intentionally brings together case studies of innovative arts activism practice from the global South, activities to develop one’s own art activism, and different ways to think about why creativity, the arts, and social justice can work together. This toolkit is free to download and published under a creative commons license.
This Scheme of Work document was devised as a framework for research and development by the Phase 2 project 'Interpreting Civic National Values' to allow young people in Kenya and Nepal to REFLECT individually on life experiences in their community and to DISCUSS these with each other - to RECORD their thoughts through shared writing and shared artwork - to bring these thoughts to life through PERFORMANCES of their choice such as: theatre, singing, poetry recital - to share their new ways of seeing community through CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGES in their interpretations of civic national values. We saw this Scheme of Work as facilitating a process of empowerment; for young people to advocate their communication of the peacebuilding process to policymakers in their post-conflict national contexts.
This Scheme of Work document was devised as a framework for research and development by the Phase 2 project 'Interpreting Civic National Values' to allow young people in Kenya and Nepal to REFLECT individually on life experiences in their community and to DISCUSS these with each other - to RECORD their thoughts through shared writing and shared artwork - to bring these thoughts to life through PERFORMANCES of their choice such as: theatre, singing, poetry recital - to share their new ways of seeing community through CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGES in their interpretations of civic national values. We saw this Scheme of Work as facilitating a process of empowerment; for young people to advocate their communication of the peacebuilding process to policymakers in their post-conflict national contexts.
This Scheme of Work document was devised as a framework for research and development by the Phase 2 project 'Interpreting Civic National Values' to allow young people in Kenya and Nepal to REFLECT individually on life experiences in their community and to DISCUSS these with each other - to RECORD their thoughts through shared writing and shared artwork - to bring these thoughts to life through PERFORMANCES of their choice such as: theatre, singing, poetry recital - to share their new ways of seeing community through CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGES in their interpretations of civic national values. We saw this Scheme of Work as facilitating a process of empowerment; for young people to advocate their communication of the peacebuilding process to policymakers in their post-conflict national contexts.
This Scheme of Work document was devised as a framework for research and development by the Phase 2 project 'Interpreting Civic National Values' to allow young people in Kenya and Nepal to REFLECT individually on life experiences in their community and to DISCUSS these with each other - to RECORD their thoughts through shared writing and shared artwork - to bring these thoughts to life through PERFORMANCES of their choice such as: theatre, singing, poetry recital - to share their new ways of seeing community through CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGES in their interpretations of civic national values. We saw this Scheme of Work as facilitating a process of empowerment; for young people to advocate their communication of the peacebuilding process to policymakers in their post-conflict national contexts.
Written by Alejandro Castillejo-Cuéllar (Phase 1 Colombia Project 'Tales of the Future). The following article is a product of Alejandro's research and raises the need to question "Transitional scenarios," their discourses, underlying assumptions and concrete practices, as part of global models of managing the effects of violence in specific contexts.
ReSpace investigates how concepts of space, through arts-based participatory methods, can engage the ‘post-memory’ generation (Hirsch, 2008) in Rwanda and Kosovo to reimagine specific sites of memory.
Chaired by ReSpace Principal Investigator Dr. Paula Callus, this symposium offered a chance to hear from partners across Rwanda, Kosovo, and the UK involved in the ReSpace project.
La Verdad, created and performed by Cuál es la verdad? (Colombia). Cuál es la verdad? (What is the Truth?) De-constructing collective memories and imagining alternative futures with young people in Chocó through music and arts is a Phase 2 Large Grant project in Colombia.
Cuál es la verdad? (What is the Truth?) De-constructing collective memories and imagining alternative futures with young people in Chocó through music and arts is a Phase 2 Large Grant project in Colombia. Check out the audio-visual toolkit from the project.
Cuál es la verdad? (What is the Truth?) De-constructing collective memories and imagining alternative futures with young people in Chocó through music and arts is a Phase 2 Large Grant project in Colombia. Check out the audio-visual toolkit from the project.
'Interpreting Civic National Values' aims to empower children in post-conflict settings to articulate their interpretations and shared communications of civic national values through their creation of a performance arts-based 'scheme of work' as a process of transformative learning for supporting local and global Civil Service Organisations (CSOs) in reducing poverty and advancing education for all, as part of the peace-building process. Watch the teams documentary film about the Nepal strand of the project.
Mobile Arts for Peace Rwanda Documentary, directed by Deus Kwizera. Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) is a practice-as-research project using arts-based methods to increase child and youth participation in decision-making and to inform National Curriculum and Youth Policy.
'The Hertica Home' is a short 3D interactive documentary that uses testimony to explore connections between space and memory by focusing upon the the Sami Frasheri gymnasium faculty in the Hertica Family home, a School House in Prishtina, Kosovo in the 1990s. This short piece developed by Bournemouth University Computer Animation students and coordinated by Dr. Paula Callus and uses the Unreal gaming engine, CGI and interviews and found sounds to develop fragmentary and non-relational impressions of this place. Watch the team introduce their film.
This panel event, part of the Changing the Story: Inside Out and Outside In Festival (Kosovo), brought together the people who contributed to making the school house system during the 1990s in Kosovo, including students that participated in The Making of the Museum of Education project. Exploring how museums emerge, the interactions between places, narratives and social actors in the process of excavation and construction of pasts in Kosovo.
Festival programme for a hybrid event that took place 14-18 June 2021 in person in Kosovo and online.
It featured the launch of the artwork installation “The Square of Untruth”, sessions from CTS projects Respace, CoLearnSEE, and The Making of the Museum of Education about their research and findings at the ‘Perspectives on Past, Present and Future.
