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Museum-based learning activities provide interactive and innovative ways to integrate the arts and humanities into medical education. Like other museum-based activities, the Group Poem supports the development of multiple clinically relevant skills and attributes, such as observation, communication, perspective-taking, empathy, and implicit bias awareness. In this paper, we present a step-by-step guide for educators seeking to design and implement a museum-based Group Poem activity for medical learners. The overall 'task' of the activity is for learners to collectively create a poem that they perform for others, a process that participants find to be engaging and meaningful to their formation as physicians. In this paper, we provide specific directions on pre-selecting the works of art, preparing the supplies, dividing into small groups, providing iterative instructions to learners, managing the timing of the session, and debriefing the activity. Although designed to be experienced in an art museum, we note that the Group Poem activity can also be conducted in the classroom or virtually using photographic or digital reproductions of artwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates a method of representation of research methodologies and philosophical positioning expressed through the use of poetics, allowing for a more playful space for critical reflection in qualitative research. Methodologies and ontological and epistemological positioning can take on many forms within the research process and can pose a conundrum for the novice researcher. During my exploration for a suitable methodology whilst I undertook a Professional Doctorate in Health and Wellbeing there emerged a selection of poems debating the merits, in addition to the limitations, of the potential options available; all dependent on the philosophical stance I chose to embrace. Within this process, I was encouraged to use this art-based method of poetic expression within the doctoral trajectory which continued throughout the journey to facilitate reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes group and community intervention work with individuals currently or formerly experiencing homelessness to create mutual connection and support using art, poetry, stories, pop-up porches, and photobooks. The group and community intervention work was enhanced by International Association of Social Work with Groups (IASWG) SPARC endorsement and funding to create photobooks which served to visualize the life stories and accomplishments of persons identifying as currently or formerly homeless. The two-decade journey of the author's work with individuals experiencing homelessness will be described to illustrate and celebrate how creative group and community interventions addressing homelessness (including photobooks) can connect individuals experiencing homelessness with people who have never experienced homelessness to facilitate group dialogue and mutual understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artistic representations of disease are widespread yet largely ignored in health psychology research. In this paper we use two infectious diseases, tuberculosis and the plague, as tracers to study how infectious diseases are represented in novels, films, paintings, and songs. They were represented especially in terms of their causes and seriousness. Studying how diseases are represented in various art forms extends our understanding of how they are socially constructed. This knowledge can also be incorporated into the training of health care providers to sensitize them to issues in patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A co-design project, consisting of individual and collective design activities, was organized with clients of a mental health service, in order to explore its potential to support people with psychosis. The group met for approximately two hours, weekly, for six months, participating in design activities and collectively deciding on the project purpose and outcome – a boardgame. The experience of one group participant (Anthony) is explored, selected as the first case study within an Interpretative Phenomenological Analytical (IPA) framework. Following IPA's ideographic focus, Anthony's case was purposefully selected, as it portrayed a detailed picture, informing theoretical reflection on designing as therapeutic. The paper includes Anthony's first-hand account, combined with an analysis of data from three semi-structured interviews, photographic evidence and a reflective diary kept by the lead researcher. Results suggest that, for Anthony, design activity: a) helps developing a sense of agency b) is experienced as grounding in reality c) contributes to the development of inter-personal relationships, and d) has a different sense of rhythm than artistic practice. These results are contextualized within literature on the lived experience of psychosis and suggest that designing can be beneficial for people with psychosis, providing the backdrop for further research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The arts are increasingly recognised as important and beneficial activities for people living with dementia. However, there is little peer-reviewed published research exploring arts-based learning for dementia care staff. In response, this paper explores (a) how dementia care staff describe forms of communication in care settings, and (b) the impact on communication following four sessions of 'Creative Conversations', an arts-based intervention for skills development. Method: Fourteen care homes received the intervention, delivered as 4 × 2 hour sessions. The intervention uses a range of activities (e.g. poetry, film, music, art making). Twenty–eight care staff were opportunistically sampled (mean age = 42.29), and provided pre-post qualitative data, obtained through interviews. Transcripts were analysed thematically. Results: At baseline, the dominant 'task-focussed' nature of care work was described as a barrier to communication, challenging opportunities for developing meaningful relationships with residents. Post-intervention, three primary themes were identified regarding improving communication: (1) learning through the arts (secondary themes: simplicity and subtlety, innovation in communication, and strengthening the role of non-verbal communication), (2) Enhancing creative approaches to care (secondary themes: element of surprise, confidence to experiment and catalyst for communication) and (3) professional introspection (secondary themes: development of empathy, sharing knowledge and experiences and a new appreciation). Conclusions: The intervention validated staff skills and confidence, enabling meaningful interactions that could be creative, 'in the moment', spontaneous and improvised. This arts-based intervention, which departs from formal education and fact-based learning may be particularly useful for the development of the dementia care workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the rise of postmodernism and the archival turn in the mid-nineteen nineties with the writings of Jacques Derrida and others, much scholarship has been dedicated to the question 'who is not represented in the archives?' Indeed, suggested changes and alterations to traditional archival practice include the incorporation of newer models like social provenance, oral history testimonies, shared-stewardship, and community archives. While this wealth of attention and consideration towards creating more inclusive archives today are sorely needed, what can be done for archives of more distant pasts? In this article, I evaluate a number of different scholarly works which address, or demonstrate, the issue of finding minority voices in early modern archives specifically. Whether through the study of works of art, literature, or legal, government documents, these authors either find ways to breathe life into past histories once assumed to be utterly lost, or their problematic analyses uncover potential for using such methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a focus on 'Moi, Eugénie Grandet', one of the last exhibitions Louise Bourgeois worked on before her death in 2010, this article explores the artist's writings, both public and private, and her interactions with writers, to assess the potentially literary nature of her written and visual works. Arguing that Bourgeois's dialogues with Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet is a contemporary and feminist response to a longstanding tradition of pictorial appropriations of Balzac's work—from Paul Cézanne's 'Frenhofer, c'est moi!' to Pablo Picasso's illustrations for the centenary edition of Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece—this article brings to light a literary intertext to Bourgeois's visual works and contends that it is a crucial aspect of her œuvre. Reckoning with a growing critical interest in the artist's archives and a rising number of edited volumes devoted to her writings, this article considers existing claims that identify Bourgeois as a writer and a poet. Aligning with Roland Barthes's definition of the literary text as a 'new cloth woven with old quotations' and the figure of active reader developed in Barthes's own dialogues with Balzac, this article contends that Bourgeois's literariness is found in simultaneous writing, reading and visual practices and in the ambivalence—between dependency and resistance—towards the words they rely on. Ultimately, this exploration of Bourgeois's words participates in a wider debate on the status of artists' writings, first articulated in Linda Goddard's 2012 special issue of this journal, where they are defined through their 'heightened awareness of the inescapable tensions and crossovers between practice and discourse' and the way they 'bear the trace of this consciousness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents some of the community-based artwork of a group of men with learning disabilities, who aimed to challenge some of the misconceptions associated with learning disabilities. People with learning disabilities regularly face many forms of direct and indirect stigma. The consequences of such negative perceptions may affect individuals' social relationships and ensure that barriers are strengthened which prevent their full inclusion. The men in this project used a series of visual and creative methods to challenge some of these misconceptions by telling stories through art, demonstrating skill through photography, using poetry to talk about sexual identity and improvising drama and filmmaking to challenge stigma, and through sculpture expressed their voices. Thus, by doing so, they were able to challenge some of the stigma associated with learning disabilities, indicating that community-based arts research is a valuable way in which to promote the voices of people with learning disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents culturally relevant strategies for creative counseling with children who have been diagnosed with cancer. In addition, therapeutic foundations and cultural considerations for using creative methods with pediatric oncology populations are discussed. Finally, the author outlines the use of specific creative interventions to assist this population including Beads of Courage, drum therapy, art, games, music, and poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]