Our research and enterprise impact

The Centre for Arts and Wellbeing at the University of Brighton benefits from the long-standing academic reputations of our departments in both arts and health.

The original Brighton School of Art was founded in 1859 and as it progressed into a university department, its ethos of international excellence and wide community benefit has remained throughout, leaving a legacy of important and vibrant arts-based projects. Similarly, medical and healthcare scholarship in Brighton has long been recognised for its pioneering research and its community engagement. The centre capitalises on these strengths allowing new focus and opportunity.

The university continues to innovate where it can make the biggest difference to individuals and communities. This includes inclusive practices in all disciplines, changing educational policies and societal attitudes and generating networks that bring community bodies, academic partners, artists and patient representatives together in countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand and the USA. It includes individual practices of excellence such as Emma Stibbon’s internationally acclaimed drawing work that explores the understanding of environmental degradation. It also promotes international understanding of how countries use arts and cultural sectors to promote social development and wellbeing amongst communities with severe challenges.

Engaging through inclusive arts practices

An extensive programme of engaged research has changed the way inclusive arts is practised nationally and internationally by government-funded bodies, non-governmental organisations, museums, education, arts and community organisations.

Through inclusive arts training and participatory arts projects global organisations including the British Council, Tate Modern and The National Gallery have expanded audiences and changed the way they interact with their public. Participatory projects in Cambodia, Kathmandu, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have led to arts organisations who work with vulnerable community groups changing their approach and practice to inclusivity in the arts.

A group of twenty Taiwanese museum workers dressed in black stand in rows around sculptures in the museum

‘Collaborative Poetics’: Realising the potential of collaborative, arts-based research

Dr Helen Johnson has led the development, application and dissemination of a new method of ‘collaborative poetics.’

In collaborative poetics, artists, academic researchers and community participants work together as a ‘research collective’ to produce creative texts. The method harnesses the skills and knowledge of all of these groups to produce innovative, creative pieces which enrich our understanding of social issues and the lived experience of these issues,helping communicate this new knowledge in engaging, accessible ways. Collaborative poetics has been used to build resilience within communities, advocate for social justice, enhance knowledge/skill sharing between fields, and provide an innovative teaching tool.

 

Sample of drip and fold work from workshop with University of Brighton conference stationery

Drawing and its applications

Drawing is increasingly being understood and valued in a wide range of contexts as making marks systematically, expressively, through observation or as a means of thinking.

Collectively and in partnership, Brighton’s research into manual drawing has been shown to challenge and deepen learning across disciplinary domains, to enable communication where speech or writing alone are not sufficient, particularly in health contexts and to develop and explore wellbeing, Brighton drawing research comprises a diverse range of communities, including clinicians, allied health professionals, art therapists, voluntary sector, patients and service users and artists.

Artist's hands working with a pencil puncturing a piece of paper in geometric design

Video art interventions on public urban screens

The work of Professor Paul Sermon and Charlotte Gould concerns the impacts and legacy of interactive telematic media art installations presented in public urban locations.

These installations have involved local participants in the activities and public organisations (NGOs such as microHome Solutions Delhi (mHS CITY LAB)) and technology partners in the development and presentation of the artworks.

Between 2014 and 2015 these networked video installations have been presented between Delhi and London, and between Guangzhou in China and Perth, Australia.

The practice of public interaction and intervention used in these installations has enabled the cultural organisations hosting these artworks to reconsider their approach to public reach, affecting their infrastructure and public engagement policies.

An outdoor festival screen plays images of picnickers filmed in other spaces, a site-specific telematic work by Paul Sermon and Charlotte Gould

Digital storytelling for health and wellbeing

Academics at the University of Brighton have been leading voices in the growth and adoption of digital storytelling as a method and in the investigation of its use and potential.

Work has included international collaborations to work with communities of elderly people and disadvantaged groups. Recent projects have brought digital storytelling workshops to communities involved in youth prison services and those with various health and community integration challenges.

Read our University of Brighton Digital Storytelling website for details of past projects and the services we offer.

 

Digital Storytelling illustrated by goldfish image