This project is an exploration of arts-based research (ABR) methodologies.  It began as a work exploring how members of the University of Arizona community engage with creativity in public spaces, then quickly evolved into a reflexive study of myself as a neophyte arts-based researcher attempting to understand the process of doing research in a new, ambiguously defined methodology.  The study looks at how does a researcher approach implementation of, make sense of, and react to an arts-based research project once it has begun?​

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The following pages are meant to give insight into the process of conducting an ABR study, and include various media related to the products from the art installations (the art-making portion of the study), as well as images from my researcher journal and my reflections on exploring ABR methodology.  Each page focuses on one art installation at a time while telling two stories: the story of the final product (the left side of the page), and the story of the researcher's process as the installation progresses (the right side of the page).  As you read, ask yourself how do these stories relate?  What do they tell about each other?  How does having both process and product present at the same time bring to light the hidden narratives and aspects of research often missing from academia--the informal, the mess of research, the changes and failures--which is later sanitized in writing the final publishable paper for the sake of professionalism?

 

One note needs to be made on the order.  For presentation, chronological order based on the start date of each art installation was chosen, as this linear story best follows the natural progression of the study.  As such, pages of this website may appear out of order based on numbering of Art Installations.  This is because--as will become evident--the installations themselves were not numbered based on order of implementation in time, but rather based on the numbers of the initial planning page in the research journal. Therefore, page numbers have been added to the site in the top right corner to help orient the reader. 

 

Additionally, every effort has been made to make the images readable within the constrains of the webpage space, but some images have smaller text than others.  Utilizing the zoom feature found on many web browser programs is recommended for optimal reading.  Lastly, the website is not optimized nor recommended for smartphone viewing at this time as it was created for tablet or desktop viewing.  

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