Social Strides
Asynchronous Session
Women Envisioning Supportive Housing: Using Creative Mapping as an Arts-Based Research Method View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mary Elizabeth Vaccaro
There are very few examples of research that involves the perspectives of women (inclusive of cis, trans and 2-spirited) and non-binary people who experience long periods of unresolved homelessness in co-designing their preferred housing spaces. Using the method of ‘creative mapping’ which intentionally draws upon a range of arts-based modalities, the Women Envisioning Supportive Housing (WESH) project engaged 25 women and non-binary people experiencing homelessness in individual arts-based workshops. Given the context of COVID-19, this research was conducted virtually (using Zoom). Women-serving organizations including shelters, drop-in spaces and transitional living programs in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada) were given a project lap-top and art-kits to provide to participants. During these three hour individual virtual workshops, participants used art and reflexive dialogue to explore and document their preferences a range of aspects relating to housing and support including; geographical location, spatial design, intentional safety features, community, participation and on-site supports. The arts-based modalities used during the creative mapping process included, drawing, blue-printing, photo elicitation, writing and mind-mapping. This presentation will explore ‘creative mapping’ as an arts-based method, with unique potential for bridging the social and physical worlds and communicating the social change priorities of marginalized populations. Lessons learned from WESH offer some unique insights into how to conduct virtual arts-based research with populations who face barriers to this type of engagement. The findings from this project will be used locally and nationally to advocate for gender-specific and inclusive forms of housing and support to better serve women experiencing long-term homelessness in Canada.
Featured Dastangoi: The Art of Storytelling View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Vanshika Kirar
The storytelling tradition, "Dastangoi," comes from "Dastan" in Persian, meaning 'story,' and "goi," meaning 'to tell.' Traditional bards, called "Dastango" in Persian, acted out these tales in parts of the Arab world, Persia and India. The storytellers would hardly use props, and relied on their linguistic and acting skills to captivate the crowds that would gather around them. But during the 19th century, the art began to die off. This study explores an interaction of this revived art-form with the modern society and illustrates how a traditional art which was dominated by elements of a particular religion in both its form and content transforms itself to become more acceptable to the urban audience. It further argues that the term ‘revival’ then, is loosely played with while describing its present position, as much of what is seen today in the name of Dastangoi, both as tradition and as an art, is hugely inventive and thus, even contested. By treating Dastangoi as a social subject, we argue that the art never travels in a vacuum and is hugely influenced by the social currents surrounding it, both temporary and permanent. Without predicting what its future will be, this study aims to explore the possible avenues in which Dastangoi as an art-form or as a social movement might travel on its road ahead based on its current trajectory.
Crevice Communites: Metaphors and Narratives in Art Making to Help Look Differently at the World View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jennifer Munday
The Creative Practice Circle (CPC) at Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a group of arts-based researchers committed to helping audiences view social issues through different lenses. Their creative works speak about the fragility of the environment and the surprising survival of communities endangered by contemporary neoliberalism. This paper shows the threads of thought that has taken the CPC from their initial work, Listening in the Anthropocene, to Crevice Communities, an online arts exhibition, which will be the springboard for a future symposium and major collaborative artwork. Since the group is geographically dispersed, they meet regularly in a virtual meeting room and a crucial part of the process of creation is discussion of ideas with resulting implications and knowledge. Various methods are employed by individual art makers, but conversation, listening, and reflecting on different viewpoints contributes to new perspectives through metaphor and media. Since COVID pushed the group into the online space for exhibiting their works they have established themselves as curators of cross-disciplinary art making and artefacts. The works in this study exemplify research connections between creative practice and the natural, environmental, and health sciences.
Power of the Temporary: Social Art in Spaces of Transitional Living View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jody Wood
This paper addresses the role of ephemeral and temporary artistic interventions into the systemic problem of homelessness and the question of sustainability in social art practice. I approach these issues through my work with homeless service agencies that are shaped by rules and procedures intended to increase predictability whereas as an artist, my work resists such rigidity by carving out space for spontaneity, vulnerability, and renewal. The dilemma of sustaining socially engaged art long-term raises particular questions within the context of institutions such as these. Can a project be successful as a temporary intervention within systems of predictability? If a project does become sustainable in the long-term, is there a way it can retain a level of energy incited by newness and unexpectedness? I discuss these issues in the context of two of my long-term projects, Beauty in Transition (2013-2016) and Choreographing Care (2016 - 2021), both working within homeless service agencies. Beauty in Transition was a pop-up mobile hair salon offering free haircare for transitional housing residents. Choreographing Care, a project supporting homeless service staff, started as a socially engaged art project and was adopted into an emergency shelter in Charlotte North Carolina, U.S.A as an organizational initiative. Both projects aim to use participatory forms of process-based art centering care and empathy to resist alienation in service provision.
Featured Comparative Study of Woman Personality in Perspective of Mythology and Psychology in Plays: Miss Julia by August Strindberg and Sing in Fog by Akbar Radi Based on the Theories of Shinoda Bolen View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amin Mokhtari
"Archetypes" are important psychological elements and "archetypal criticism" has always been considered as one of the important types of literary criticism. The theory of archetypes is based on the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, a theorist in the field of psychological sciences. In this theory, the structural elements of myth, which are present in the collective subconscious mind, are analyzed. According to Jung, there is a kind of universal experience in these elements that is repeated in different forms and in all generations. Contemporary psychologist and theorist Shinoda Bolen also contributed to a more accurate understanding of archetypes by supplementing Jung's theories and elaborating on their manifestations in daily lives of individuals. In this study, using mythological and psychological criteria in Shinoda Bolen's theories, two famous theatrical "woman" characters have been the subject of comparative studies. These characters are "Julia" from the play "Miss Julia" by August Strindberg and "Ensie" from the play "Sing in May" by Akbar Radi. Although created in two different geographies and cultures, the two characters bear significant similarities from Shinoda Bolen point of view. This study also shows the fact that quoting mythological and psychological elements in the creation of theatrical characters can lead to the production of a similar pattern in the process of this creation. A pattern that transcends temporal and spatial boundaries and relies more on archetypes than any other element.
This is America/This is Not America: Subjectivity, Dream Logic, and Critiquing the Normalization of Violence View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Al Yasha Williams
Atlanta is the home of trap music, arguably the most popular trend in American music in this century. This project is an effort to bring Atlanta’s trap music video culture and aesthetics into conversation with other groundbreaking audio/video artists who employ surrealism to critique the use of violence. Released in 2018, the song and video by Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) entitled “This is America” garnered international attention, debuting at No 1 and earning four Grammy awards. Commentators noted the surreal combination of aloof humor, Afro-Caribbean dance, dream sequences and violence that predominates in trap videos and on Glover's tv series Atlanta. Four years later, reggaeton musician Rene Peres Joglan (aka Residente) revisits the song with ‘This is Not America,” a new critique taking into account the cumulative responses to the original song with a fresh perspective that calls American identity into question with the colonial status of Puerto Rico. I will connect these two “America” videos to the audio and video installation art of Beatriz Santiago Munoz, whose works deal with gender, militarization and national identity. This entails a comparison of these videos with a recent exhibition by Munoz, A Universe of Fragile Mirrors (2022) which critiques the historical narrative of freedom with the colonial conditions of Puerto Rico. The aesthetic of “dream logic” which alternately incorporates subjective recollection with collective and/or dominant narratives of power, militarization, and conceptions of American identity, will be interrogated as a motif of both American rap music and Caribbean magical realism.
