Articles and their roles

In addition to the table of communities, case studies and articles presented in the previous section, I placed all the research encounters and articles on a timeline (Figure 3) to aid the reader in understanding better the process of this study. This timeline also includes the events of public display of the research and artistic outcomes, as they were significant to the narrative processes and representation of the study.

Figure 3. Timeline of the research encounters, published articles and exhibitions.

The order of the articles in the dissertation is based on the chronology of their publication, although the cases referred to in these articles have been implemented in a slightly different chronological order. Through the brief annotation of the articles in this section, I outline the development of the themes, thought and practice through the duration of the study, as well as each article’s contribution to the bigger picture of the study. Throughout the further chapters, the articles are referred to repeatedly in order to exemplify phenomena and support the argument. The findings of each of them are discussed in Chapter 5 alongside the study’s overall findings.

Article 1 that I co-wrote as the third author takes a general look at socially engaged art practice and its potential for facilitating empowerment, wellbeing and transformation for the involved communities. It does so through presenting three case studies where arts-based practices enabled identity work among the

involved artists and communities, which manifested through the narratives that were shared. The research question posed in the article is: How can collaborative narrative-based art-making processes create a platform for dialogue and empowerment? Only one of the case studies regarded in this article was carried out by me personally and constitutes a part of this study’s data—the case study Shop around the corner in Cork, Ireland, with the community of local multigenerational family-owned businesses. The other two, Wings to fly and Just, were carried out by my colleagues and the supervisors of this study.

Having conducted the narrative analyses of our respective cases, we were able to build the argument together and demonstrate varied narrative and arts-based approaches to working with communities. The case study Shop around the corner applied arts-based methods to unite stories and places they relate to, as well as to prompt a dialogue around urban space.

Common themes between the case studies and the shared narratives included empowerment, participation and identity processes. Common methods across the cases were ethnographic observation, sensitising through narratives and storytelling, and probing. In conclusion to the article, a framework is presented for creating empowering art through narrative processes individually and with communities is presented.

Article 2 presents analysis of the two South Australian sub-cases of the third phase of this study’s fieldwork, the case study Margin to margin. These sub-cases were carried out with mainly female Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists living and working in remote and rural areas. The article inquires about two matters: a) How to build empathy with communities through arts- and narrative-based processes? and b) What are the potential practical applications of empathy-building through arts and narrative-based processes with communities?

This article serves as the first important step in making sense of the encounters and data of the large case study that is Margin to margin. All the three of us, the authors, had participated in these research encounters and wrote from our own experiences. I contributed as the third author and created the visuals, photos and figures, to communicate our ideas. Arts-based methods were applied in a consistent manner between the two cases, alongside an ethnographic approach and audiovisual documentation.

The key themes that emerged in the article were empathy, art, storytelling, social design and empowerment. The article discusses the potential of arts-based practices not only in an arts-based research context itself, but also as a preparatory phase for service design projects in community contexts, namely through the functions of establishing researcher-participant empathy and gaining insight into participants’ life worlds.

In the article, we formulated a framework for the said empathy, too, complimenting the framework from Article 1. Strong methodological emphasis in this article lies on the methods of audiovisual documentation. Though these methods had been used throughout the study from the first cases, it became

possible to look back and analyse their real impact and potential towards the third phase of the fieldwork.

Having compiled a body of theory regarding identities, communities and narrative inquiry through previous writing, I felt that analysis of the very first case study, Have you heard?, was due. The sense-making processes that had occurred in the writing of the previous two articles allowed for a viewing of the collected data from a more in-depth perspective of identities that come about through the narratives that participants communicate in participatory contexts, as opposed to the roles assumed for and by them.

Article 3, where I acted as the first author, presents a comparative analysis of two cases in the fields of community site-specific art and service design. Mine, Have you heard?, dealt with the themes of migration and belonging with a community of immigrant shop owners and employees in Edinburgh, UK. My co-author’s case, Good Life in Villages, took place in rural Finnish Lapland with local communities and addressed population ageing and the challenges of centralism.

The article asks how the focus on narrative identities of the involved parties can contribute to engagement in community-based art and design projects.

Through presenting theoretical backgrounds from our respective fields of art and design, and having conducted the narrative analyses of our respective cases, we compiled in this article a different approach to facilitating participant engagement and adding local meaning to cases through understanding and employing participants’ narrative identities. This conclusion impacted on further analysis of narrative data and a more holistic understanding of identity work.

Article 4 presents an analysis of the two Arctic sub-cases of case study Margin to margin that took place in Rovaniemi, Finland, and Murmansk, Russia.

The involved participants were young artists and designers. In Murmansk they were students of the local University, while in Rovaniemi many of them came from elsewhere and were united by migratory experiences. The two research questions posed here were: a) How can creating temporal environments for collective making and storytelling contribute to knowledge dissemination and transfer from one remote community to another? and b) How does documentation of personal narratives promote a better understanding of and between different contexts?

The article analyses the stories and narratives shared by the artists in relation to their art-making processes and respective contexts and applies the

Collective arts-based practices were carried out through the same methods as those described in Article 2 in order to ensure consistency of data. The examples of narrative identity constructing processes of artists living and working in specific

geographic, climatic and cultural environments are given here through citing group discussion and multiple individual artworks that the artists created during the two encounters. The fil rouge of audiovisual documentation continues here.

Article 5, where I also contributed as the first author, concludes the analysis of the four encounters that constituted the case study Margin to margin. In this article, the less familiar realm of HCI is explored as an avenue for further analysis and representation, through digital platforms and virtual spaces, of the outcomes of arts-based research with geographically marginalised communities, as well as a practical tool for keeping the established community of practice alive and growing.

My co-authors and I inquire about the ways to utilise HCI solutions for approaches that draw on the experiences and outcomes of art-based research in marginalised communities.

Again, the role and implications of audiovisual documentation is emphasised here. This article was significant in terms of tying together most of the ethical considerations that were made throughout the research process.