K. Scott, Jonathan A. Butler, Karen Spurgin, Prabhuraj D. Venkatraman
{"title":"Restorative fashion: Collaborative research, benign design and the healing powers of the mutuba tree","authors":"K. Scott, Jonathan A. Butler, Karen Spurgin, Prabhuraj D. Venkatraman","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00116_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00116_1","url":null,"abstract":"The potential of a radically Indigenous and endangered textile to improve human well-being and environmental health is the subject of an ongoing cross-disciplinary and multi-faceted research project between the United Kingdom and Uganda. This article presents the researchers’ findings to date on Ugandan barkcloth, produced from the mutuba tree and part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Methods included fieldwork in Uganda, natural dye experiments, testing a biodesign strategy, textile laboratory testing and scientific laboratory testing of the unique antimicrobial properties of barkcloth. Although beginning with artistic, practice-based research, the group uncovers important knowledge that may provide significant medical science benefits. They identify the central role of the mutuba tree in restorative and agroforestry systems; create natural dyes that may confer barkcloth’s properties to other materials. Thus demonstrating barkcloth production as a truly slow fashion textile and well-making system that promotes the well-being of people and planet in multiple ways.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123348360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crafting with a purpose: How the ‘work’ of the workshop makes, promotes and embodies well-being","authors":"F. Hackney, L. Setterington","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00113_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00113_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines two community arts textile projects to consider the relationship between workshops, as method (and methodology), and the research/knowledge that emerges from and through them. The ‘workshop’ is understood as the structural relationship between people, processes, materials and place, while ‘work’ is the knowledge/research that emerges from these interactions. While different in intent and structure, both projects share concerns about making, health and well-being. Craftivist Garden #wellMAKING worked with a network of local amateur craft groups across the United Kingdom to think critically about health and well-being, while Kotha and Kantha examined how stitch serves as an alternative well-making strategy for a group of Bangladeshi-born women living in Manchester, United Kingdom. The article argues that thinking about the workshop as a ‘holding form’ and/or ‘bloom space’ and paying attention to the stories told and artefacts (knowledge objects) made in workshops is vital to understanding their value.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133730920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Well-making: Understanding what works from lived experience","authors":"Mah Rana","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00117_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00117_1","url":null,"abstract":"The importance of looking after our mental health has been a prominent topic of discussion nationally, regionally and locally since the United Kingdom experienced increased levels of stress and uncertainty caused and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. People working in the arts, culture and health sectors – such as health professionals, artist practitioners, academics, charities and volunteer groups – are concerned with how the pandemic has adversely and disproportionately impacted vulnerable members of society. Encouragingly, invested groups and stakeholders in non-clinical practice have reported on the successes of everyday creativity in the form of psychosocial programmes that tackle social isolation by using the arts and culture as non-clinical opportunities to improve well-being. This article focuses on the Lived Experience Network (LENs) to highlight how involving experts by experience in research provides deeper understanding of what works and what does not when co-creating meaningful everyday creativity to counter social isolation.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117306156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Remaking, hope and wellness through online connectivity","authors":"E. Collins","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00118_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00118_1","url":null,"abstract":"With digital connections through social media platforms becoming more prevalent in our lives and climate anxiety now commonplace there is a need to understand ways to create deeper, more meaningful connections to each other, the things around us and the planet we live on. Handmaking through digital platforms may offer these connection opportunities. Remaking can take that a step further and offer tactile solutions informed by digital connections that can help combat climate anxiety. However, to successfully utilize social media channels we need to better understand how online making promotes well-being (well-making) and how that experience differs from or intersects with making in an offline context. This article explores a making and design approach that can move beyond the social media ‘filter defence’ through collaborative remaking on Instagram, helping people individually and collectively increase our personal (and planetary) well-being.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122816993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Not knowing as well-making: Creativity, addiction recovery and clay","authors":"Joanna Mills","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00120_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00120_1","url":null,"abstract":"This photo essay shows work made during ‘ReCast’, a short creative residency led by British Ceramics Biennial in partnership with Stoke Recovery Service. Images of the making process and final pieces are combined with first-hand participant-accounts articulated through poetry. Focusing on an experimental approach to making and firing, the processes used involve a high degree of risk. The element of risk is key to allowing clients to challenge behaviours such as perfectionism and exploring the presence and absence of control within a supported environment. Participants were encouraged to reflect throughout on the parallels between the recovery process and the ceramic process, both in a wider context and in relation to their own personal experience. The quality of the work produced reflects the clients’ openness to experimentation and many express a sense of achievement, having clearly left their comfort zone far behind.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131599000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of nostalgia in making for well-being","authors":"M. Loveday","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00115_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00115_1","url":null,"abstract":"While some maker activities and actions have clear and measurable outcomes with increasing research about the joys and benefits of creativity, there is an aspect of making which is infrequently considered, perhaps because it is largely unconscious or may even be viewed negatively or dismissively. This is the pleasure to be found in the nostalgic aspects of crafting and making. This article examines the current research on the benefits of nostalgia, and how craft activities invoke nostalgia in various ways. Nostalgia is implicated as an element which can contribute to well-being – the perception of purpose, control and satisfaction which supports health and happiness. Although nostalgia is also already a factor in some making projects designed around well-being and health, it might in the future be used more consciously to contribute to other well-making activities.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125224531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘You go away happier in your heart’: The generativity of a women’s community learning jewellery-making group","authors":"L. Lewis","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00114_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00114_1","url":null,"abstract":"Within the growing body of research on creative arts practices in community settings and mental health and well-being, the craft of jewellery-making has not featured strongly, and understanding from contextual, critical sociological perspectives has not been widely developed. This article reports on ethnographic research undertaken with an older women’s adult community learning (ACL) jewellery-making group, using theories of ecological and relational agency and insights from feminist theorizing to help elucidate its social, creative, educational and mental health and well-being-related generative processes. Findings are presented along two main, interrelated themes: creative agency and shared learning, and the social generativity of the group. The focus is on the transgressive, resistive and expansive aspects of the group’s interactions within the wider socio-economic, sociopolitical and cultural context of the women’s lives. Implications for enacting the mental health and well-being agenda in ACL are discussed.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"137 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115026426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Well-making in social design: Opening the potential for makerspaces in social design projects","authors":"Nick Gant, Katie Hill","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00112_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00112_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article highlights well-being outcomes reported by participants in three social design projects where making has featured as a community engagement and research tool. The spaces created through the projects are framed as makerspaces, a well-documented model of physical locations designed purposefully to support people making and mending together, often in a community setting. Using reflections from the perspectives of two practitioner researchers on co-designing, making and using these spaces, the article is part of ongoing research on developing ideas about well-being and making. We call these spaces well-maker-spaces. The aim of this article is to expand understanding of how makerspaces as a social design tool benefit participants and communities. Drawing on evidence generated through art-based research of ways that making with others contributes to well-being, we propose that makerspaces in social design projects can proactively support well-being alongside other social and environmental outcomes.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115887675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interview with Angela Maddock","authors":"F. Hackney","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00121_7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00121_7","url":null,"abstract":"This interview with Angela Maddock explores well-making in the context of her own textile arts practice, teaching and research. Describing well-making as a potentially transformative act of making, both physically and psychologically, Maddock associates it with processes of contributing, building, attaching and connecting – enabling agencies and affects that bring people and things together. Projects range from the knitted performance piece Bloodline, which she co-made with her mother, and quilts made collaboratively with midwifery students from their own repurposed underwear. Maddock’s work ranges from public commissions to informal domestic pieces made for herself, friends and family, but she is always attuned to the memories and meanings embodied in the materiality of fabric. Knitting, trauma, family, feminism and subjectivity are themes that run throughout Maddock’s work which includes unmaking as much as making, disassembly and repurposing, in a process of remaking the self as much as the stuff of everyday life.","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114221843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rejuvenation: The 14th Annual International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) Conference, online, 14‐16 January 2022","authors":"Krystal Demaine","doi":"10.1386/jaah_00105_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jaah_00105_5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":117252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Arts & Health","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121295122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}