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