Art-based research as waves of embodied engagement: Reflections on Across the Tamar

Across the Tamar began as a research project exploring the physical activity, health and lifestyle of women over 60 in Cornwall, UK. It evolved into a multidimensional, long-running art-based health research project incorporating songs, stories and poetry into live performances, an audio CD (Douglas & Carless, 2005) and series of YouTube films (Douglas & Carless, 2013, 2015). In this article, we share some dialogical reflections on our journey through the project to suggest that an important contribution of art-based research is to facilitate – or expect – multiple waves of embodied engagement. We explore three waves of embodied engagement that occurred during our work on the Across the Tamar project.