Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Art is a powerful method for research, that can be used to engage women to think critically about their own lives, identify shared sites of social injustice and vision a better future. Drawing on two community arts research projects, this paper explores using art as a tool for co-theorizing with marginalized women about social change. Through creating a “collective collage,” the “Under a Magnifying Glass Study,” funded through the Interdisciplinary Health Research Group, explored the experiences of health and social service use for mothers living with HIV (MLWH). Women met as a group, bringing in items to add to the collage, which resulted in a piece of artwork that enabled women to identify their shared barriers and make recommendations for social change. In 2017, the [in]visible (Women’s College Hospital, Toronto) project engaged 30 women experiencing homelessness, in two-hour ‘arts-based’ think tanks, to make recommendations for women’s housing development. Women drew, photographed, wrote and sang about their preferred housing in these workshops. The findings have been curated into an art video and the recommendations are being used in the development of two housing programs for women in Canada. These two studies use art as a catalyst for engaging women in making meaning of research data and transforming their individual stories into collective visions for social change. This paper will show the art created by women through the collaging and arts-based think-tanks, and will explore the implications of using art to involve women as co-theorizers on research projects.