In this final workshop in the Visual and Embodied Methodologies (VEM) Creative Methods series, we consider how to incorporate creative research methods in your own research.

We will cover what the ethical implications are of working with creative methods, the practicalities, potential, challenges and ethics of collaboration and research design and prospects for dissemination.

The workshop will be facilitated by VEM convenors, Professors Jelke Boesten, Rachel Kerr and Cathy McIlwaine and Svetlana Sequeira Costa, Director of the Arts Cabinet.

There will be an opportunity for participants to discuss and develop their own projects so please bring your ideas along with you.

The workshop will be followed by a performance of ‘We Still Fight in the Dark’, preceded by a short presentation and Q&A with Professor Cathy McIlwaine and Carolina Cal, Founder and Artistic Director, Migrants in Action.

Programme:

1500 Welcome and introductions

1505-1555 Research design and ethics

Professor Jelke Boesten (VEM) – Imaging Social Justice

Svetlana Sequeira Costa (Arts Cabinet) – Ethics and logistics of collaborative research with artists

Dr Suzanne Hall (Policy Institute) – Creative methods in policy research

Professor Rachel Kerr (VEM) – Creative research and advocacy/activism

1600-1655 Participant project workshop/Q&A

1700-1800 Presentation and discussion of ‘We Still Fight in the Dark’

Professor Cathy McIlwaine and Carolina ?

Reception

‘We Still Fight in the Dark’

Migrants in Action, a community theatre organisation, worked collaboratively with a group of 12 Brazilian women during eight creative applied arts sessions to produce a creative response to the alarmingly high levels of gendered violence experience by Brazilian women, drawing on academic evidence.

The video performance We still fight in the dark, showcases an innovative approach for developing collective creative strategies for community healing and resistance. It was developed by MinA, and King's College London (Professor Cathy McIlwaine, Department of Geography and Dr Niall Sreenan, Policy Institute) (funded by ESRC IAA), and supported by People's Palace Projects, Queen Mary University and Latin American Women Rights Service (LAWRS).

MinA is a theatre organisation for Brazilian women survivors of gender-based violence in London. It used Theatre of the Oppressed methodology and a trauma-informed approach to question the intersections between migration and gender and to explore the nature, causes and consequences of violence in women’s bodies and minds. MinA’s objectives are to nurture individuals and their collective experiences of migration, as well as bringing visibility to struggles and achievements among women in the Brazilian diaspora.