Minutia Matters

Robert Kelly, Minutia Exhibit McIntosh Gallery and lecture, King's University College, , University of Western Ontario, September 2009, Photography C. McLean.

New Call for Abstracts for 2nd book in the CAIP Research Series, Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

CAIP, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice Research Series

Publisher: Detselig Temeron Press

Editor, Cheryl McLean, Publisher IJCAIP

International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice

Associate Editor, Robert Kelly Ph.D.

Call for Abstracts

Book 2 in the CAIP (Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice ) Research Series

Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

The CAIP, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice research text series was launched with the inaugural text “Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change” published by Detselig Temeron Books, Editor Cheryl McLean, Associate Editor Robert Kelly, scheduled for release in April 2010. (http://www.creativeartpractice.blogspot.com )"Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" introduced the emerging field with illustrative examples, demonstrating the breadth and depth of the applications of the creative arts in research action and interdisciplinary practice. About the book

New Call for Abstracts:

In the second research text in the CAIP series, "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" there will be a particular focus on creative arts and research that transforms and empowers individuals and communities. We are interested in creative arts and research within neighbourhoods and cities, across continents and beyond borders. Currently we are seeking illustrative and accessible research accounts of new work offering hope for change across cultures and communities locally and globally.

These are a just a few of the themes and subjects areas of special interest:

• arts and community based research and participatory methods
• arts in research and practice re-building or bridging communities in conflict (visual arts, dance, performance, narrative/poetry, installation etc.)
• arts in research and interdisciplinary practice across cultures for global change
• ethnographic/oral history field studies leading to arts for social justice, anti-oppression work, empowerment
• arts in research for improved health and quality of life, poverty, homelessness, environment, disability, youth, crime, aging, urban studies

• arts in research and interdisciplinary practice that is used in distinctive and innovative ways, transformative new methods and creative approaches to help investigate, explore, articulate and communicate research findings while working actively within communities and beyond borders to foster change.

Submissions for Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

Send an abstract (max. l pg.) as a Word attachment, with a short bio and a brief list of academic references to CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com with “submission Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change" in the subject line.

. Due date for full articles will be July 30, 2010.. Please be aware that we are seeking research related articles.

Arts a Bridge for Access to Good Science and Local Knowledge

photo Olga Davis

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice,
Contributor Features


“How do arts-based communication channels serve as a “translational bridge” for providing communities the access to good science and researchers the access to important local knowledge? A community-based participatory health communication approach to health literacy highlights the role that art and performance can play in intervention and offers a culturally based model for replication in other marginalized communities."
Olga Ildriss Davis


Olga Davis Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University (ASU) and co-Principal Investigator of the Community engagement/Community Outreach Core of the SIRC NIH-P20 Centre of Excellence grant for the Study of Health disparities in the Southwest. Her research agenda is in the domain of critical cultural and performance studies in the disciplinary area of human communication. Her work explores the performative struggle of identity within the African Diaspora, the Black body as a site of racialized and sexualized oppression, and the function of memory as ritualized healing among survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Central to the work is the study of narrative—how narrative empowers, creates, and fosters cultural awareness to provide a space for social change.

More Information

Filmmaker Opening Opportunities to Communicate Through Film and Media

photo from Citizenshift website
Six films were made by This Ability Media Club, a group of adults with developmental disabilities who have learned to use video to tell their stories.

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice,
Contributor Features

"While becoming a director, marginalized individuals learn to actively express themselves in the process of creating new media works, regardless of the commercial potential of the work. In the process of training a novice director, the artist, researcher, or artist-researcher makes the connection between self-expression and self-determination explicit, allowing the novice to apply artistic knowledge to their social relationships."
Lorna R. Boschman

Lorna R. Boschman has been a documentary and media artist for over twenty years; her work has shown at many festivals and venues, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Two of her works are part of the collection at The National Gallery of Canada. Currently Boschman is a PhD student and sessional instructor at Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts and Technology. She was the director of the community-led media arts training workshop for self-advocates and their supporters called, this ability media club.

This Ability is an innovative filmmaking project that puts the tools of media creation directly into the hands of adults with developmental disabilities. Formed as a partnership between the National Film Board of Canada and the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion (BACI), with support from Philia and the United Way, the aim was to move away from videos that merely observe people with disabilities, towards ones that give an inside perspective on the human experience of disability.

Through regular workshops and hands-on training, the filmmakers in the This Ability Media Club developed the skills to tell their own stories in their own way. Filmmaker Lorna Boschman worked over the course of a year with a dedicated group of six to eight people, meeting weekly, building a relationship and helping them become comfortable with the cameras and other technical gear they would need to make their own films.

From the National Film Board of Canada website




see film directed by Michelle McDonald, "Be Kind to Spiders"
Project Director, Lorna Boschman
This Ability Media Club/National Film Board of Canada/Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion
Watch here:
http://citizenshift.org/be-kind-spiders

Arts Based Health Research More Synergy Across Canada

"transformation" Photo C. McLean


C. McLean, Publisher IJCAIP

Having been active in the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice for several years, I'm very encouraged by all the recent buzz about arts based health research as we see a number of new investigative initiatives springing up across Canada. Artists, health researchers, scholars and educators are meeting at the same conference tables to explore new and creative forms of arts based research to discuss the work, approaches and processes. One recent meeting agenda described their workshop as "a unique opportunity for researchers of multiple disciplines to bring to bear, under one collective umbrella, matters of meaning and communication, matters of methods and matters of theoretical knowledge that feed and enrich the area of arts based research."

On October 26, representing The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP, I was invited to attend a workshop on "Exploring Transformative Potential of Arts based Health Research" hosted by Scientist, Katherine Boydell, ( The Hospital for Sick Children), at Hart House, University of Toronto. I was pleased to note that among the participants were social scientists, scholars, nurse educators, students as well as many artists in attendance including nationally recognized dramatists, visual artists, artist researcher/poets, dancers and others lending their voices and opinions to the animated discussions at the workshop. On November 20, another workshop took place in Vancouver at The University of British Columbia called "Arts Based Methods in Health Research" hosted by investigators Susan Cox, Centre for Applied Ethics and George Belliveau, Language and Literacy Education. Dr. Belliveau is also an Advisory Board member for The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP.

These recent meetings in Canada, attended by educators and leaders across disciplines, are yet another encouraging indication of the growing interest globally in the field of the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice. We will hope that as a result of these new initiatives, successful creative arts, science and health research alliances will be forged within our country and beyond, partnerships that could help create enriching and innovative opportunities for learning and the potential for future programmes benefitting individuals and communities worldwide.


Cheryl McLean, Publisher IJCAIP, http://www.ijcaip.com
Editor, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change"
http://www.creativeartpractice.blogspot.com

Aesthetic Quality Important for Ethnodramas About Human Condition

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice
Contributor Features

"Some scholars in the social sciences may employ the term “performance” in casual ways that irk the sensibilities of those deeply involved in the culture of theatre, for mounting a theatrical production, regardless of its magnitude, is hard work. Nevertheless, theatre is one of the artistic media through which fictionalized and non-fictionalized social life—the human condition—can be portrayed symbolically and aesthetically for spectator engagement and reflection."

"The art of writing for the stage is similar to, yet different from, creating a dramatic narrative for qualitative reports, because ethnotheatre employs the media and conventions of theatrical production. A researcher’s criteria for excellent ethnography in article or book formats don’t always harmonize with an artist’s criteria for excellent theatre. This may be difficult for some to accept but, to me, theatre’s primary goal is neither to educate nor to enlighten. Theatre’s primary goal is to entertain—to entertain ideas as it entertains its spectators. With ethnographic performance, then, comes the responsibility to create an entertainingly informative experience for an audience, one that is aesthetically sound, intellectually rich, and emotionally evocative. Ethnotheatre reveals a living culture through its character-participants and, if successful, the audience learns about their world and what it’s like to live in it."

Johnny Saldana
quotes from: Ethnodrama: an Anthology of Reality Theatre, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005.
protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Please contact the publisher for permission to copy, distribute or reprint.

Johnny Saldaña is a Professor of Theatre in the School of Theatre and Film at Arizona State University where he has taught since 1981. He is the author of Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change Through Time (AltaMira Press, 2003), a research methods book and recipient of the 2004 Outstanding Book Award from the National Communication Association’s Ethnography Division; Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre (AltaMira Press, 2005), and The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (Sage Publications, 2009), a handbook on qualitative data analysis. His forthcoming textbook, Understanding Qualitative Research: The Fundamentals, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

Johnny Saldana is a contributor to the recently released book, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change", eds. Cheryl McLean, Robert Kelly, Detselig Temeron Press. ("Ethnodramas about Health and Illness, staging Human Vulnerability, Fragility and resiliency" pg. 167-180) ) He is also an Advisory Board member for IJCAIP, The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice

http://www.ijcaip.com

Arts Gaining Momentum in Medical Education

Arts Alive and Thriving in Medical Education

It has been reported that the use of arts and humanities in medical education may help develop observational skills and enhance understanding of the human condition. Programs integrating the arts and humanities in medical education continue to flourish and gain momentum with leading medical schools offering programming such as Stanford School of Medicine, Arts, Humanities and Medicine, established to “promote creative and scholarly work at the intersections between the arts, humanities and medicine in order to enhance our understanding of the contextual meanings of illness, healthcare, and the human condition.” 1 In Canada, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Humanities in Medicine, offers five core initiatives: History of Medicine; Narrative Medicine (oral storytelling film, mass media, and literature); Music; Spirituality; and Visual Arts. 2 The Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine Program at the University of Alberta was launched in May 2006. The program is directed to engendering a balance of scientific knowledge and compassionate care with a mission statement that formally acknowledges “the explicit recognition within the Faculty that clinical practice is both an art and a science.” 3

The arts are alive and thriving in medical education today, offering opportunities for learning and a place for self expression and healing. A leader in the field of Narrative Medicine, Dr. Rita Charon, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at the Columbia University 4 has long advocated for the use of narrative in medical education to honour stories of illness. Dr. Arthur Frank, Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary, and author of “The Wounded Storyteller, Body, Illness and Ethics”, writes about the meaningful uses of storytelling for those experiencing illness, “The personal issue of telling stories about illness is to give voice to the body, so the changed body can become once again familiar in these stories.” 5

In our current issue of IJCAIP, http://www.ijcaip.com, "Physicians Speak Out About Arts in Medicine" we've offered physicians a place to voice their stories and share how they use the arts in education.
Our featured article in issue 8 of The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP, “Stories and Society, Using Literature to Teach Medical Students About Public Health and Social Justice,” has been contributed by Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Community Health, Portland State University and Senior Physician of Internal Medicine at The Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Centre. Donohoe offers an argument for “enhancing public health education of medical students through the use of literature with the goal of creating activist physicians knowledgeable about, and eager to confront, the social, economic and cultural contributions to illness”. He has also generously provided an extensive list of books, articles and resources. A follow up commentary by Jay Rosenfield, MD, MEd, FRCPC, Vice-Dean of Undergraduate Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, stresses the need for continuing research to examine the use of literature and story in medical education further, particularly when linked to advocacy and health of populations and patient outcomes.

Maureen Rappaport MD, FCCFP, is a family doctor who splits her time between working in a busy community practice in Montreal , Quebec, and teaching family medicine residents and medical students. In the article, “The Poetry of Practice” she writes about the creative writing course she teaches as an elective to fourth year medical students at McGill University, a course that provides an important place for students to express their feelings through narratives and poetry.

Physician and Educator Pippa Hall MD, CCFP, MEd, FCFP, at The University of Ottawa, has been a palliative care physician for over ten years. She has integrated arts into learning activities for pre-licensure students and in post graduate programs as well as in continuing professional development activities in nursing and spiritual care. She explains how she has found the arts in many forms provide opportunities for learning while offering new insights into the human condition.

Seema Shah, MD, MSPH, offers a unique perspective as both a physician and patient who has experienced chronic illness. Working with The University of British Columbia Community Partnerships for Health Professional Education Initiative, she facilitated group sessions using literature and story to help teach students about the lived experience of illness.

Our closing commentary explores the exciting potential for other innovative and creative technologies incorporated into teaching and medical education. Kim Bullock, MD, family medicine and emergency room physician, and Director of the Community Health Division and Assistant Director of Service Learning in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University, Medical Centre, Washington, believes digital storytelling in medical education has the potential to “link the social, environmental, and historical issues that influence health and illness through graphics”. “What emerges,” she writes, “are voices from the community that bear witness to issues that influence health including problems related to the environment, housing, public safety violence, inequities ..”

The voices represented in this issue of IJCAIP speak about progressive approaches to learning that have the potential to offer hope and change in education and in healthcare practice. There may yet be questions to be answered but, given the space, there will always be stories to tell and those who will witness, learn and be transformed.

Thanks to all the physicians who joined us in this issue of IJCAIP for sharing their articles and commentaries while contributing to this lively discussion about the arts in medical education.

Issue 8 is accessible and available at the website for subscribers.
We invite you to read the full articles available and accessible from the IJCAIP home page in HTML and PDF formats. We hope you will share these stories with your friends and colleagues.


C. McLean, Publisher IJCAIP



Subscribe free to IJCAIP Journal with an email to CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com "please subscribe"

Read more about the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice in the upcoming book “Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change” to
be published by Detselig/Temeron Press, 2010, Editor, Cheryl McLean, Associate Editor, Robert Kelly.



________________________

1.About the Program, Stanford School of Medicine, Arts, Humanities and Medicine, http://bioethics.stanford.edu/arts/

2. Dalhousie University Humanities in Medicine Program http://humanities.medicine.dal.ca/

3. Arts in Humanities in Health and Medicine Program, University of Alberta, http://www.med.ualberta.ca/education/AHHM/index.cfm

4. The Program in Narrative Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University,

People/Leadership/ Rita Charon MD, Ph.D. http://www.narrativemedicine.org/about/people.html

5. Frank, Arthur, “The Wounded Storyteller, Body, Illness and Ethics”, University of Chicago Press,

1995, (pg. 21, Chapter l)

Collaborative Meeting Around Transformative Potential of Arts Based Health Research

I look forward to a meeting early next week with over 60 professionals, scientists, health researchers, educators and artists at The University of Toronto, people connected to a new collaborative project that has the potential to open the way for innovative and transformative arts based health research in Canada and internationally. It's encouraging to witness the potential for real change in the making as scientists, researchers and artists join together meeting at the same table to discuss how each might contribute to the creative methods and solutions that could profoundly shift the ways we experience, express and understand health research. I'm glad to have an opportunity to participate and to represent IJCAIP The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice at the workshop. And I look forward to connecting with others with common interests around the creative arts in research and practice for hope and change.



C. McLean, Publisher IJCAIP, International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice
Editor, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change"

Arts Informed Research and Community Based Research

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice,
Contributor Features

"Arts may be used in various stages of the research process in a variety of ways for envisioning exercises during the planning phase, to generate knowledge through data collection or analysis or to disseminate research results. The method allows those directly affected by the issue to document and express their concerns and their worldviews effectively."

Isumi Sakamoto, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Social Work, University of Toronto.

Professor Izumi Sakamoto is a former Fulbright Scholar, a Michigan Society of Fellows Associate Fellow, and a “Community of Scholars” Fellow of the Institute of Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. Dr. Sakamoto’s training and practice span North America and Japan, and she brings interdisciplinary perspectives from social work, social psychology, cultural psychology, and women’s studies.

Digital Story Facilitates Reflective Process Among Future Physicians

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice,
Contributor Features

"The purpose of incorporating digital storytelling in medical education at Georgetown University (Washington DC) is to facilitate a reflective process among future physicians. This process is based on active listening, personal commitment and building physician-patient trust which is essential in providing quality care. Through eliciting stories that relate to personal health, patients are engaged as educators who contribute to the students comprehensive understanding of interrelated determinants of health. By promoting patients' participation in their own health affairs, physicians are ultimately able to provide better and more lasting care."
Kim Bullock, MD


Kim Bullock, MD is a family medicine and emergency room physician as well as Community Health Division Director and Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Centre. She has infused social learning theory and reflective patient and community centred practice into her classroom and clinical teaching. Dr. Bullock also serves as Director of The Community Health Division and Assistant Director of Service Learning where she has strengthened community partnerships within pre-clinical medical education and used digital stories to expand student participation and engagement in diverse local communities.

Look for commentary by Kim Bullock in October issue The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP.

About the Book

"Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Pratice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" is the inaugural text in the groundbreaking CAIP, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Research Series. Editor, Cheryl McLean, Publisher IJCAIP, The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice and Associate Editor Dr. Robert Kelly, Fine Art, University of Calgary and Published by Detselig Temeron Books, this contemporary research text introduces an emerging and rapidly growing field with a dynamic collection of illustrative articles about the creative arts in research, action and interdisciplinary practice.

First hand topical accounts are featured from leading academics, health researchers, nurse educators, physicians, educators, environmentalists, artists and others who actively use the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice in cutting edge research and in methodologies for health, hope and change. Readers will learn how the creative arts can offer unique opportunities to embody and re-illuminate the human story, stage human vulnerability, foster citizenship and give voice to narratives of human experience.

Researchers candidly share their experiences with the creative arts in research while voicing the stories of the work in practice. A varied and multifaceted collection of creative research in action, this is an accessible yet highly informative academic text that enlightens the reader about the inquiries and the processes while offering first hand insights into approaches, how to method based exercises and lists of comprehensive references.

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inqurires for Hope and Change is the first text in the CAIP research series, an action oriented and transformative research text that points to a new path for hope and change while showing how the creative arts in inquiry and in action applied across disciplines can make a critical difference for individuals and society. Through compelling accounts, this information rich text demonstrates how the creative arts can uniquely cross disciplines and fields in search of solutions while creating new communities for change in the process.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Buy Now on Line see top right Buy Now Button at this blog!

IJCAIP A Place for Physicians to Speak Out About Arts and Medicine

Almost to the finish line for the next issue of IJCAIP, The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice. It's expected the new issue will be accessible to subscribers at the website on or about October 25 at http://www.ijcaip.com. If you haven't heard about this creative arts/ interdisciplinary practice open access journal we suggest you visit the site and take a look. It's free for subscribers to access with an email to CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com and you can also access issues as well as the archive back to March 2006. IJCAIP also runs a companion blog called "Arts Crossing Borders".

The next issue of IJCAIP "Arts in Medical Education, "Physicians Speak Out About Arts and Medicine" will feature a lead article by Martin Donohoe MD, FACP, Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Community Health at Portland University and Senior Physician, Internal Medicine, Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Centre, who writes about the values of using literature to help teach medical students about issues in public health and social justice. There will be comments from Jay Rosenfield MD, MEd, FRCPC, Vice- Dean, Undergraduate Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto as well as several other articles and commentaries in the next issue of IJCAIP from physicians actively using narrative, literature and poetry in medical education.

We will be featuring a section on story and narrative in the upcoming book, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change".

posted by: C. McLean, Publisher/Editor, IJCAIP, International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice
Editor, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change"

Durham University Site Offers Advice About Writing in the Social Sciences

FYI I came across an informative site today at The Durham University Department of Anthropology, Writing Across Boundaries website. Featured at the site are short essays and words of advice from leaders in the social sciences. Arthur Frank, Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary and author of "The Wounded Storyteller" writes about "Writing as a Form of Analysis". Norman Denzin, Harry Wolcott, Marilyn Strathern and others are also featured.

C. McLean

The Narrative: A Healing Qualitative Exploration

"My goal with telling these stories is to inspire others to tell the truth about what it means to be a clinician, what it really means to them. In this way, narrative has been more than just storytelling for me, it has been profoundly healing and life changing...it is the type of research that I believe healthcare needs to encourage so as to allow clinicians to tell their own rich, unique and hidden stories. In this way we can inspire a more profound and rich qualitative exploration into a narrative between human beings in healthcare."


Sue MacRae RN, Nurse, Clinical Ethicist, Former Deputy Director of the University of Toronto, Joint Centre for Bioethics, Transpersonal Psychotherapist

Arts and the Experience of Homelessness

"In empathic listening we move our attention away from ourselves, we stop observing facts that are interesting or new to us so that we can open our hearts to the living person with whom we are in contact. "
Photo from: http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/uofcpublications/oncampus/february2009/reading
Read more here

Ian Prinsloo MFA, actor, director and artistic director facilitated "The Lower Depths Project" organized by the University of Calgary’s Department of Drama and Faculty of Social Work. The project was an arts-based exploration of the experience of homelessness. He has worked as a professional theatre director in Canada for the past 20 years working with The Shaw Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Blyth Festival, Manitoba Theatre Centre and was Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary from 1997 to 2005.

Book Blog Community Meeting Place, Text will offer Additional Opportunities for Learning at Blog

By Cheryl McLean, Editor

The idea for a book blog to help preview themes and information about the upcoming research text "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" has been a great success. We've received hundreds of emails and responses about the reference text as a result of the blog where we have posted news previewing information about themes and content while offering inside news about topical stories relating to the work in action and practice.

With the help of the internet and Google Blogger we can do more than publish articles or report the latest data...through video, we introduce you to the contemporary researchers, artists and educators working in this interdisciplinary field and we offer opportunities for you to participate and be a part of the action. We meet as a community with common research interests and "in this room" where we gather we witness these stories and experience energy, creativity, humanity in action.

The stories, reports, videos and helpful links to new sites and resources found here at the book blog will eventually coordinate directly with text content and illuminate each chapter..offering opportunities to enhance class readings and discussions with dynamic and illustrative information directly related to the book "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change".

As an academic and contemporary text one of our goals was to help raise awareness about the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice and enliven the learning experience increasing the accessibility to research through internet technologies. An engaging idea. I think if recent feedback is any indication of our progress to date, we are definitely on the right track.

The journey continues.


"Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" is the inaugural text in this series of contemporary research texts about the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice.

Book l Inaugural Text
Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change

Book 2
Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change
Across Cultures and Communities for Change

Book 3
Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change
Story, Technology and Transformation




Want to be informed when the book is available and ready for purchase from the publisher? Send email: CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com "order info"

Empowering Communities for Environmental Action Through Drama based Methods

The article "Engaging Neighbors, Transforming Toxic Realities" Community Environmental Forum Theatre, Using Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed to Promote Environmental Justice" by John Sullivan Adjunct Faculty member Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Texas Medical Branch is featured in the book Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change (Pt. l, Creative Arts in Research and Action for Community Change, pg. 61).


"Community Environmental Forum theatre (is) a bi-directional, educational interface empowering communities with peer-reviewed science, infusing science with a bias toward action on social justice issues and an ethical perspective that prioritizes inclusion, respect and commitment to addressing community needs, honoring community historical perspectives, and integrating community cultural practices directly into participatory research methodologies."
John Sullivan

See John Sullivan and his work in action




See Video

Performance Can Offer Hope for Change

"The ethnotheatrical performance, if well done for a receptive audience, holds potential to increase awareness, deepen understanding and provide
experience that generates sympathetic and empathetic responses and memories for future applications and transfer into clinical practice and possibly health care policy."



Johnny Saldana, Professor, Associate Director, Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Arts, School of Theatre and Film, Arizona State University, Tempe.

Book Welcomes Interest from Leaders Across Disciplines from Canada, U.S., UK, Australia

Summer at IJCAIP has been productive and we have received outstanding research based article chapters and submissions for "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" from leaders across Canada the USA, UK and Australia representing Education and The Fine Arts, Humanities, Medicine/Healthcare and the Social Sciences.. academics and health researchers, adult educators, physicians, nurse educators, designers, dietitians and therapists, visual artists, photographers, environmentalists, dramatists and activists. Our illustrative and definitive text, among the first texts of its kind in this emerging interdisciplinary field, will bring together an outstanding cross section of researchers and professionals sharing their experiences and knowledge, their inquiries and their methods in informative and compelling articles about the creative arts applied in research and interdisciplinary practice for hope and change.

This is the first book in a series of contemporary texts about the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice. For ordering information send an email to CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

Book l Inaugural Text
Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change

Book 2
Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change

Book 3
Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change
Story, Technology and Transformation

Wordelling Toward Meaning

Working on a project? Try creating your own Wordle.

A Creative Journey Begins

"Divergent waves continue throughout a creative exploration, as several alternatives and possibilities are continually generated. Inventive momentum develops as ideas morph and hybridize in an idea environment saturated with alternatives and stimuli."
"Inspiration for tactics can be derived from a vast array of sources that include nature, art, music, dreams and travel....enablers promote mental readiness, provide motivation through personal connection, prevent repetition of old strategies and patterns and diminish inhibitions in idea generation. The best intended strategies and tactics for idea generation could be easily undermined if the appropriate enabling environments were not in place."

Robert Kelly, from " Creative Expression, Creative Education" (pg. 31)


Robert Kelly Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of Art, University of Calgary and an artist. He is Associate Editor of the texts "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" and "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Research for Community Change Across Cultures"

An Embodied Learning Experience for the Researcher as Actor

"Working as a researcher as well as writer and actor allowed me to take part in an active and creative learning experience by witnessing, writing script and then physically embodying the stories. A performance can raise awareness educating well beyond the podium conveying lived experience in action with elements visual, emotional physical and spiritual. In this field process we are told and we tell stories engaging in one of the most primal, meaningful and universal of human connections." Cheryl McLean



Cheryl McLean is Publisher of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP and Editor of the CAIP, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice Research Series.

About Jacob, 87, A Survivor and a Volunteer in the Hospital Cafeteria:

"Jacob would meet me for the first time, each time we would meet, but he spoke seven languagues fluently. He told me he had learned them all in the death camps. When Jacob would serve me my coffee he would usually offer a little advi ce and, on this day, he told me..to be happy you should never want for another's spoon... but hold on to your own spoon very carefully! One day I was sitting in the cafeteria having coffee with Jacob and I asked him, "Jacob, with all you have seen, and all that you know how is it that you can still be so happy every day? And he told me"Wake up every morning at 5:30, say your prayers and don't forget to watch the sun rise."

From the Ethnodrama "Remember Me for Birds" info: CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

Books of Note

Quotes of Note

"The qualitative researcher may be described using multiple and gendered images; scientist, naturalist, fieldworker, journalist, social critic, artist, performer, jazz musician, filmmaker, quilt maker, essayist. the many methodological practices of qualitative research may be viewed as soft science, journalism, ethnography, quilt making or montage. The researcher, in turn, may be seen as a bricoleur, as a maker of quilts, or as in filmmaking, a person who assembles images into montages." Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, Sage 2007.photo c.mclean

"The business of art is rather to understand Nature and to reveal her meanings to those unable to understand. It is to convey the soul of a tree rather than to produce a fruitful likeness of a tree. It is to reveal the conscience of the sea, not to portray so many foaming waves or so much blue water. The mission of art is to bring out the unfamiliar from the most familiar." Kahlil Gibran