Community Engaged Research and Creative Arts

Dr Tania Cañas received funding in the 2020/1 Community Engagement Grant round to build a partnership between the Victorian College of the Arts and cohealth Arts Generator.

Often people with lived experience are invited to share at start and then community-engaged research involves minimal consultation at the beginning, at arm’s length during through advisory groups, and/or translation at the end of a process.

This pilot sought to develop a partnership between the Victorian College of the Arts and cohealth Arts Generator to develop a community engaged research module for researchers in the creative arts, design and media fields; that goes beyond extractive methodologies.

Supported by a Melbourne Social Equity Institute Community Engagement Grant, Arts Gen developed an eLearning self-directed module that engages a series of voices and resources that unpack community-based research practice and methods of working from a creative pedagogical perspective.

The modules are:

  • Acknowledgement as pedagogy
  • Community as frame
  • Artist-as-researcher
  • Evaluation-as-process

The eLearning assembles community organisers, artists and an interdisciplinary array of resources (from podcasts, poems, zines and direct pieces-to-camera from currently practicing community-based artists, alongside academic articles- to speak to the depth and breadth of community-based research work.

Tania Cañas
Victorian College of the Arts
Faculty of Fine Arts and Music