Culture and Community Researchers’ Network 2010

Informal group met monthly for discussion and collegiate support

The Arts and Community PhD Researchers Network is a partnership between the Cultural Development Network (CDN) and VCAM’s Centre for Cultural Partnerships’ PhD students, the network brings together researchers from Victorian universities who are interested in cultural development, social change, creative methodologies, artistic intervention, and/ or community research themes. It provides opportunities for presentation and discussion of new research in an informal and supportive collegial environment for students and by students.

For news about future meetings of the Arts and Community PhD researchers’ network see our Events page.

Presentations 2010

October:
Reflexions: A Co-operative, Arts-based study into the settlement of young, humanitarian entrants from the Horn of Africa
Jill Parris, PhD Candidate, Arts Education, the University of Melbourne
Jill is a counseling psychologist who works with new settlers who come to Australia under the UNHCR settlement plan and has recently submitted her PhD thesis. In her presentation, Jill will use a series of short videos to lead you through the research process. This study begins by collecting the stories of settlement that emerge from participants within the Horn of Africa Arts Project and then moves on to investigate the use of drawing in mandalas, film, and theatre as cooperative data collection tools. It looks at the richness of the data collected and the impact of these tools on young participants who are humanitarian settlers from the Horn of Africa.

September:
Exploring the various historical and cultural influences that inform decision making in Tony’s creative practice, music improvisation, within a range of collaborative projects
Tony Hicks, Masters in Performance Research, Faculty of VCA and Music, the University of Melbourne
Transubstantiation: Alterity of Particularly Determined Objects What changes in ordinary matter to change the way we consider it?
Evangelos Sakaris, PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, VCA
References:
Andrews, Munya, The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades: stories from around the world, Spinifex Press, 2004.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London, New York, Dunedin, N.Z: Zed Books, University of OtagoPress, distributed by St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

August:
How can contemporary public art create cross-cultural dialogue?
Zara Stanhope, PhD Candidate, ANU
Having a voice that matters
Poppy de Souza, PhD student, University of Melbourne

July:
Moving with the times: maintaining cultural identity through fusion genres
Vicki-Ann Ware, PhD (Ethnomusicology)
The Mowanjum Festival: A model for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Collaboration
Robert Hoskin, PhD Candidate (ACU, School of Arts)

June:
Louise Docherty on evaluation in music therapy and Kim Dunphy on the role of arts in social change In East Timor.
Download Kim’s presentation summary

May:
 Creative Engagement and Deliberative Democracy: participatory advocacy methods
Marnie Badham, PhD student at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships at VCAM
and McCaughey Centre at the School for Population Health.

March:
Community art and cultural theory: beyond a practitioner discourse
Danielle Wyatt, PhD candidate, School of Global Studies, RMIT University
and
Exploring Indigenous festivals and reciprocity
Bo Svoronos, PhD candidate, RMIT’s Globalism Research Centre

October 2009 discussion:
Creative Ways of Knowing: how can we consider and value ways of knowing
through the arts?
Theories of change as they relate to the arts: what are the theories of
change or values that drive the work of the socially engaged artist?

Readings:
[How] Does Activist Performance Work? By Sonja Arsham Kuftinec and
Thriving Arts : Thriving Small Communities (particularly lit review section p. 2-10)
Culture, Community Development and Representation by Su Braden & Marjorie Mayo

Readings from previous meetings: