research approach - Community participation in making permanent public art

Community participation in making Permanent Public Art

Research Project 

By Debbie Qadri

Doctoral Student at 

College of Education

Victoria University

Melbourne, Australia

Abstract:

Increasingly participatory and social art practices are being used in temporary public art practice but the same cannot be said for permanent public artworks. This paradox is central to my inquiry. In this research project I will examine permanent public artworks in which community members have participated as art-makers in order to explore the practical and philosophical considerations involved in the process. My research will utilise Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (1997) methodology of portraiture to provide narratives of participation which demonstrate the possibilities for cultural democracy in the context of permanent public art. I will also make a self-portrait, drawing on my own experience as an artist who works with communities to make permanent public art.

Aims of the Project:

In my role as a community artist I often make permanent artworks with community members where they are involved as art makers. I have experienced this type of collaboration as a powerful way of developing and expressing community ownership, values and identity. My experience leads me to believe that making art with community members’ values individuals and diversity but at the same time develops and celebrates “community”. Through this work I have also encountered some issues which make it difficult to involve community members as art makers in larger permanent commissions. My lived experience and ongoing investment of self in community arts based work has led to this research commitment in an attempt to further understand the relationships between the engagement of community members as makers and permanent public art.

The main aims of the project are to:

·         Explore the current discourse that informs permanent public art and its relationship to the participation of community members as art makers.

·         Explore the relationships between the philosophical arguments of community arts and ideas of cultural democracy (Gattinger 2011, p. 3) with participatory art practice and permanent public art. In what ways does participation in the making of permanent public art entail a form of cultural democracy by focussing on inclusion, diversity and access to the means of cultural production (Gattinger 2011, p. 3; Hope 2011)

·         Explore the rationales, meanings, emerging issues and workable approaches for involving community members as art makers in permanent public art.

·         Bring to light the stories of community members as makers of permanent public art and what are the meanings and outcomes for those involved and the local community. This will give voice to a broader range of perspectives about this form of public art.

·         Explore and develop theory about the practical and philosophical implications of community members making permanent public art.

·         To disrupt existing notions of how art making is privileged in certain spaces with certain types of art-makers and to expand understandings the knowledge and learning community members can contribute through participation in  making permanent public art. And to change the way in which artworks where community members are involved as art makers are generalised (Bohman 2015).

Definitions of some key terms:

This thesis will specifically look at the area of community participation in making permanent public art. In this research ‘community’ refers to a gathering of non-artists who make the artwork, a definition which will be further explored in the literature review particularly as it is used in terms such as ‘community participation’ and ‘community arts’. The term ‘public art’ in most instances is used in public art policies  to denote artworks which are situated in the public realm (City of Melbourne 2014), or places where the public frequent, it does not generally refer to artwork in museums or galleries (Australian Institute of Architects 2009; Schuermans, Loopmans & Vandenabeele 2012). ‘Permanent’ in this thesis refers to artwork which is not ephemeral in nature, which will not deteriorate in public space if it was not removed, or which is intended to be permanent. It is expected that these definitions will evolve through further reading of the literature and be elaborated on in depth in the literature review.

Contribution to knowledge and statement of significance

Increase understanding of participation and cultural democracy in Permanent Public Art: There is a significant interest in community participation in both local and state government funding bodies (McQueen-Thompson & Ziguras 2002) and in contemporary art practices (Bishop 2006, p. 180; Lacy 1995; Pollock & Sharp 2012, p. 3063). Participatory art practices suggest democratic consumption but do not always include democratic production. A majority of public artworks which include community participation are ephemeral and rarely develop into permanent public art and conversely permanent public artworks rarely involve community members as makers. My research will examine this paradox.

Documentation of permanent public artworks which include participation by community members as makers: Although permanent public art often involves community consultation, this research examines what participation might look like. My research will produce new perspectives and understandings about practical methods and philosophical approaches to involving community members as art makers.  This research will document these artworks, through the creation of narratives which demonstrate why and how community participation in making public art is important. It will also provide new knowledge through the disruption of privileged notions of art and valuing community made artworks.

Research that will serve a broad audience: Through the use of narratives I intend this research to be more accessible, useful and engaging to a broader audience, including those who work and make decisions in the field of public art such as council arts and culture officers, artists who work with communities and people who are interested in community engagement. My research will provide new insights, perspectives and knowledge which will shape the way in which other artists approach and understand community participation in the future.

A Contribution to the literature: Community participation in making art is predominantly theorised in the field of community arts and is rarely brought into the context of permanent public art. Most literature which tells the stories of participation in permanent art, take the form of reports which lack rigorous analysis and contextual frameworks. My research will contribute to knowledge in this area.

Give voice to the makers: Much of the literature about participatory art making with communities celebrates the artist who has used the community members as “their material” or by “engaging them in the artwork”. The community participants are often viewed as receivers of experiences instead of contributors and makers. These concepts attribute the artwork by non-artists into the frameworks of welfare and engagement (Jacob 1995, pp. 55-6). These are narrow perspectives about the outcomes of community participation in art making. My research will broaden our understanding of the benefits and outcomes of this type of public art. It will also benefit those people who have been involved in this type of artwork by telling their stories and sharing their perspectives.

Socio-political processes of learning: This research examines what is learnt through making an artwork in public space. The thesis will explore the way in which informal education occurs when community members are involved in making permanent public art, in particular the ‘socio-political processes of learning stimulated by art’ (Schuermans, Loopmans & Vandenabeele 2012). Within the context of public pedagogy, permanent public artworks can be seen as powerful because they endure over long periods of time and can create, inform and shape narratives of history and culture. In this way artworks play educative roles in public space. This research will engage with the theories of public pedagogy and cultural democracy by exploring how public art has a role to play in informal education, particularly in its enactment of citizenship within public space and as an educative arena where norms of public space and dominant social discourse are challenged (Sandlin, O'Malley & Burdick 2015).

New Knowledge

I will be adding to the knowledge base about community engagement in permanent public art. Specifically my research will include my own experience in the field, and that of community members who have participated as makers of permanent public art. This research will present the perspectives and experiences of the makers in an area where first-hand accounts are rare.

New lenses

Through my research I will be weaving together the areas of cultural democracy, social and political readings of public space and current theory from the areas of public and participatory art fields. My approach of straddling disparate areas of theory in my research will allow new knowledge and perspectives to emerge.

 Literature Review

The focus on community participation in cultural initiatives is increasingly on the agenda in arts funding guidelines and policy and there is an interest in how participating in arts and cultural activity intersects with other areas of public concern including education, health and wellbeing, community identity and development ((AEGIS) 2005). This interest in participation, community identity and ownership of public space is also evident in many documents such as guidelines, statements and policies, of local councils and national and state art departments and organisations. There is also an interest in the concept of place-making with many councils undertaking to involve local residents in decisions about changes in public space. However there seems to be a differentiation, that regards community participation as useful in ephemeral projects and activities but not appropriate for larger permanent public art commissions. In actuality, many examples of small scale permanent projects exist which involve community members as makers. These projects are rarely described as public artworks, entered into the history of public artworks, or documented and theorised in academic literature.

My research is focussed on the involvement of community members in the making of permanent public art. Literature related to my research focus has been sourced from a variety of fields, including contemporary participatory art genres, public art theory, and social geography. There is not a large amount of literature specifically pertaining to community participation as art makers of permanent public art, and this may reflect the common assumption that this practice falls into the area of community arts and therefore belongs nowhere else. Mary Jane Jacob (1995, p. 56) argues that although participatory art practice has been adopted by art institutions, participatory art is devalued because it looks like social work, that it is made by the community instead of the artist, and therefore is not art.

What is public art ?: In Western culture public art became popular in the late twentieth century following on from the memorial movement after World War One (Holesworth 2015)), and its use as political ideography (Miles 1997). Alternatively Cameron Cartiere (2008, p. 8) points to the 1967 creation of the National Endowment of the Arts, Art in Public places program in the USA as the beginnings of public art as we know it today. In Australia public art commissioning has become largely the domain of local councils (Fazakerley 2008)and organisations that manage public spaces and refers to artworks which are placed in public space. The conjunction of the two words public and art contains many contradictions and so public art is often referred to as a contradictory and contested notion (Rendell 2006, p. 6; Zebracki 2013, p. 303). Jane Rendell (2006) says it is neither public, nor art.

Public art is not part of mainstream art discourse (Phillips 1995) because it is in public space and usually commissioned by council employees instead of curators and, its reception and audience becomes a concern (Phillips 1995, p. 67). Permanent public art is not generally part of an artist’s general practice and public artworks are often made with the assistance, or solely by designers and architects (Holesworth 2015, p. 8). Artists working in public space have multiple and often complex roles (Phillips 1995, p. 67) they need to work in collaboration with architects, engineers and a committee and because their work is made to serve a specific purpose (Rendell 2006, p. 16), it is often dismissed  by mainstream art culture, ‘as the work of second-rate artists working on commissions’(Holesworth 2015, p. 6).

Public art does not fit with art’s freedom from function, as Jane Rendell points out ‘ In many public projects, art is expected to take on ‘functions in the way that architecture does’ (Rendell 2006) and the claims about what function and role public artworks play are largely devised by the planners and creators of public art, not the public (Zebracki 2013, p. 304). Public art includes a broad range of rationales and is commissioned for a variety of reasons including; urban revitalisation (Pollock & Sharp 2012), economic development (Schuermans, Loopmans & & Vandenabeele 2012; Schuermans, Loopmans & Vandenabeele 2012) or for public good (Holesworth 2015, p. 7) There are also social benefits attributed to public art and these include ideas such as civic pride, social interaction, a sense of community and local identity (Schuermans, Loopmans & Vandenabeele 2012).

Public artwork has also been criticised in many ways, ‘a menace and something that has to be maintained’, ‘overblown versions of studio-based sculpture’ (Phillips 1995, pp. 65-6) ‘wallpaper to cover over social conflict and tensions (Miles 1997) plonk art (Winikoff 2015) or ‘a sedative that quiets legitimate concerns or objections’ (Phillips 1995, p. 64). However this  adverse position of public art, as being outside mainstream art, provides it with a “border” condition, from where it can ‘frame and foster a discussion of community and culture’ and provide a view of the ‘relation between institutionalised culture and participatory democracy’ (Phillips 1995, p. 60). Likewise Rendell (2006, p. 4) suggests that public art has a possibility as a ‘critical spatial practice’ to ‘work in relation to dominant ideologies but at the same time question them.’ Chantal Mouffe (2008) situates the work of artists in public space as a crucial dimension to democracy, in that they ‘disrupt the smooth image that corporate capitalism is trying to spread’, they play an important role in subverting dominant hegemony, and they contribute to ‘the construction of new subjectives’. Empirical research in this area would be valuable in substantiating these claims. This research intends to demonstrate how community participants envisage the educative and ideological roles of their artwork. It will also explore the educative, knowledge and learning claims of the participatory art movement in the light of public artworks which have involved community members in making.

Participation

Alongside the current push for participation in both local government and institutional arts policies (Melbourne 2015; Pollock & Sharp 2012), there is a parallel turning towards the audience and participation, by some areas of contemporary art practice. These approaches which emerged from the 1990’s onwards are described in various conceptual frameworks include the social turn (Bishop 2006; Boros, 2011), new genre public art (Lacy 1995),  relational aesthetics (Bourriaud 1998, p. 14) dialogical aesthetics (Kester 2005) dialogue-based public art (Finkelpearl 2000), New Situationism  (Doherty 2015) or spatial aesthetics (Papastergiadis 2006). These theoretical stances share a common interest in process, using public space and the involvement of the audience or public as part of the work. With the emphasis on participation and the de-emphasis of object-based work (Jacob 1995, p. 57) this philosophy champions community participation but it tends not to include permanent public art. Both Kate Crehan (2011) and Mark Dawes (2008) discuss the impact of community involvement in making as an alternative to consultation, but neither refer to permanent artworks.  There are many case studies and reports of ephemeral participatory public artworks (Beyes 2010; Bishop 2006; Lacy 1995)

Claire Bishop (2006, p. 180) asserts that both governmental policy on participation and the new social art use the same rhetoric. Joanne Sharp (2007, p. 274) agrees that public art’s use as a tool for urban renewal ‘reflects the influence of ‘new genre public art’ approaches which privilege art as process over art as product’. Pollock and Sharp (2012) express their concerns about the rhetoric of participation, pointing out that through processes of consultation and token ‘participation’, communities may become increasingly aware of their powerlessness to affect their environment. Paul O’Neill (2010) suggests that although participatory art does not often place emphasis on the end product, it is this end product which is often documented, written about and experienced. This dilemma of object versus process, as explicated in contemporary participatory movements, remains an area that needs further interrogation.          

Community participants as makers of permanent public art: The impetus for community participation in public art is currently discussed in democratic or social justice readings of space, place-making and in public art (Duncum 2011; Pollock & Sharp 2012).  Case studies about community participation tend to refer to design and consultation such as contributing of stories or subject matter (Finkelpearl 2000; Pollock & Sharp 2012; Stephens 2006). The few scholarly articles about community engagement as makers in permanent public art include Tom Anderson and  Bernard Conlan’s (2013) writing about the Belfast community murals which is mainly anecdotal in nature. Many stories about community members making public art can be found in reports, newsletters and historical renderings, but rarely in academic literature. A rare exception is O’Neill’s (2010) writing on durational participatory art, which refers to several projects some of which have permanent outcomes including the Nouveaux Commanditaires and The Breaking Ground Program in Dublin. Considering the context of the increased concern for participation, there is a need for more critical writing in this field.

The difficulty of finding literature which directly deals with community members as makers of permanent public art necessitates a review which pulls in literature from pertinent fields of academic debate such as social theory of art (Becker 1982; Bourdieu 1984; Wolff 1983) public art theory (Cartiere & Willis 2008; Deutsche 1996a; Fazakerley 2008; Landi 2012; Rendell 2006; Zebracki 2013), community arts (Binns 1991; Hawkins 1993; Kelly 1984; McQueen-Thompson & Ziguras 2002) and the participatory art movements (as cited earlier). When drawn together these provide the philosophical base of my research.

Public space has become the subject of much theoretical debate and the literature in this field is extensive and informative. Authors not mentioned above who have made important contributions to the socio-political and geographical role of art in public space include Guy de Bord (1967), Timon Beyes (2010), David Pinder (2005), Hannah Arendt (1958), Jacques Rancière (2004) , Nigel Thrift (2006) , Rosalyn Deutsche (1996b) and Miwon Kwon (1997). Earlier philosophers who influenced this work include Henri Lefebvre (1947), Michel Foucault (1984), Walter Benjamin (1969) and Michel de Certeau (1988). Thus the larger literature review for this research will include these and other authors.

Theory about politics and space have also contributed to the place-making movement (this work usually arriving from cultural geography) which some councils have adopted as the reason for involving local communities in art-making, often in public space (Kent & Nikitin ; McCann 2002; Pierce, Martin & Murphy 2010). Well-trodden paths move between the fields of public pedagogy, cultural geography and social art, similarly addressing concerns about the connections of art, community and democracy. Many theorists view art in public space is a vehicle for ongoing shifts in ideology, arguing for a strong relationship between art and politics, exhibiting an optimism for what art can do and the possibilities and capacities it might set in motion (Beyes 2010, p. 232; Carnevale & Kelsey 2007, p. 259; Duncum 2011, p. 360).

Themes of dominant ideologies, cultural hegemony (Gramsci 2000), socio-geography, public space, participation and social change will provide additional theoretical underpinnings to my research. It will also include literature on the community arts movement of the seventies and its Marxist underpinnings, discourse analysis, and feminist and participatory art theory.

The literature review will also include a wide range of texts including documents, policies, guidelines and media texts relating to permanent public art. It will draw on case studies and narratives of community engagement as makers in permanent public art, literature about participatory art, community art, social geography in relation to public space and public art theory. The literature review will also be used as an investigation of previous research to develop hone questions about my topic (Yin 2003b, p. 9).

Methodology and conceptual Framework

Introduction: This research springs out of my own practice as an artist who works with communities and is deeply influenced by my ongoing interest in how the notion of community members as makers relates to current permanent public art practices and commissioning.

My initial designs for this research tended to focus negatively on the barriers and tensions which I felt were in the way of community members being involved in making permanent public artwork. Instead of dwelling on the research ‘problem’, I have found that Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (1997) methodology of portraiture offers a positive way forward as a mechanism for exploring the positive and good aspects of community members’ engagement as makers and tell the stories of why and how communities are involved. Portraiture uses interviews to create dialogues about the subject which are developed into narratives which tell stories of other perspectives and experiences. This methodology offers a positive way to explore the questions that had arisen in my art practice. The value of using portraiture is that it accommodates my own experience and perspectives, and also the use of reflective and aesthetic renderings of the analysis. In contrast to other methods of conducting research such as case studies or discourse analysis, I feel that this method will be more suited to the way that I express myself and will also allow for a more complex, deeper and more experienced-based research framework.

Lawrence-Lightfoot also acknowledges a place in her methodology for the subjective self of the researcher. The inclusion of the self in research is also supported by other research methods such as autoethnography (Bochner & Ellis 2002; Carolyn Ellis 2011; Taber 2010) and drawing methodology (Guillemin 2004; Theron et al. 2011) looking for guidance on reflexive methods, validity and  critical practice.

Paradigm: The paradigm that is most suited to my research is that of constructivist/interpretivist, as through my research I will be trying to ‘make sense of something,’ turning it from  my own ‘sense impressions’, into something that can be ordered and fitted into a conceptual structure, theory, discipline or philosophy (Lincoln & Guba 2013, p. 45). The intent of the research will be to explore the public artworks as portraits/case-studies in order to discover a range of perspectives and meanings which can be attributed them. The inclusion of my own experience and perspectives forms an integral part of this research and will be acknowledged as an aspect that adds knowledge to the research and has an effect on the research (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 186; Mackenzie & Knipe 2006).

My own philosophical framework has been heavily influenced by critical literary theory (e.g. feminism, post-colonialism, Marxism) and its broader focus on democracy and equity (Bohman 2015) which I encountered during my undergraduate studies of literature and writing. My experiences of working with communities to make artworks, has affected the way I contextualise this type of artwork philosophically. I see it as part of a bigger project of cultural democracy (Gattinger 2011).

In this project I envisage the process of making portraits in the constructivist/interpretivist tradition as useful in providing ways forward and opportunities to create change. By presenting narratives about community members’ who have been engaged in making permanent public art, I can offer my readers other perspectives which may change the way in which they generalise about community members as art makers in permanent public artworks (Bohman 2015).

Research design and structure: Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (1997) approach of portraiture appears to be appropriate to accommodate this journey, through its emphasis on the presence of the researcher and her own lived experience as she embarks on empirical research seeking other perspectives and the good in things (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 141). Her methodology uses dialogue and interviews to construct narratives which explore the good in things (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 9). Portraiture utilises aspects of case study such as interviews, field notes and observations, but allows room for the researcher’s perspective, experience and their reflections on the research journey to enter the narrative. This is important for my research because it evolved from my own experience and practice in the field. Lightfoot’s methodology allows for the perspectives and lived experiences of others to be told and this is an important aim of my research. The narrative style of portraiture also accommodates reading by a broader audience and it is my hope that this will encourage a wider readership of my research and encourage dialogue about the participation of community members in permanent public art.

            I will also be using broader case study methodology to support my data gathering and analysis, utilising the work of Robert Stake and  Robert Yin (Stake, R. E. 1995; Stake, Robert E. 2005a, 2005b; Yin 2003a, 2003b) as well as other authors (Brinkmann & Kvale 2015; Guest, Namey & Mitchell 2013; Scott & Garner 2013) to guide the research design, selecting cases (public artworks), development of interview questions, data gathering and analysis. Portraits are usually written texts in the form of narratives, but I will be extending Lightfoot’s ‘aesthetic expression’, to include imagery such as drawings and photographs and these will add further dimensions to the data

The research will include the making of four portraits. Three of these portraits will be of permanent public artworks where community members have been involved as makers in order to explore the rationale and meaning of these projects and their philosophical and practical considerations. Artworks will be chosen which differ in mediums, types of communities and contexts to enable the research to cover a broad base of experiences and situations. The artworks are likely to be in (but not limited to) Victoria as this will assist with physical access to documents and increased flexibility with interview appointments, which will assist with making a richer portrait. There are very useful examples of permanent public artworks with community members involved as makers in many countries, but the logistics, economic costs and different languages may become barriers to success which would need to be weighed up against the research opportunity that it provides.   A fourth portrait will be a self-portrait which will examine my own ongoing involvement in the research as an artist in the field and celebrate/explicate my subjective role in the research.

Self-portrait: The self-portrait will focus on the research journey, acknowledging that it is driven by my own perspective and emotional response of my lived experience of the research subject. Portraiture places centrally the voice of the researcher and their role as an active learner and encompasses the researcher’s narrative as a writer inside the work, not outside the work (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 21). This self-portrait will run alongside of my investigations of other artworks made by communities and document my changing perceptions during the research as reflective practice. It will draw on past experiences, mind maps of philosophical and theoretical understandings, diary notations and field notes.

Portraits of Permanent Public artworks: In order to create thick description (Geertz 1973, p. 6; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 8) data for these portraits will include document collection, dialogue and a description of the physical setting. I intend to use Lightfoot’s five ways of employing context which include the detailed description of the physical setting ( through text and drawing), the researchers perch or perspective (my own self portrait), the history and cultural ideology of the place (literature review and collection of documents), central metaphors and symbols that shape the narrative (arising from the interviews and other data collection)  and the actors (interviewees) role in shaping and defining context (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 44). Case study methodology will be used as support, but the adherence to Lightfoot’s methodology and concepts will form the main basis of my methodology.

Data: Data will be collected using documents, interviews and descriptions of the physical setting of the public artwork as outlined below.

Documents: Documents collected will include; texts, website materials, reportage (internet, audio, video or hard copy), newsletters, and miscellaneous documents in order to collect evidence of the practical and philosophical implications of the engagement of community members as makers of the artwork. The documents will also be used for the literature review, to research the history and cultural ideology of the place (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 32) and to identify potential interview subjects.

Interviews/dialogue: Lightfoot  (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 3) refers to the collection of dialogue, using interviews. Each portrait will involve approximately six interviews in order to encompass a wide range of perspectives. The most important interviews will be those with community members who have made public art, but other people such as facilitators, artists and the audience of the artwork will also be included in order to broaden the range of perspectives about the philosophical and practical aspects of the artwork. It is imagined that with any artwork there will be a range of people involved who had varied experiences and different perspectives and the aim of the interviews is to elicit the variety of different perspectives. Through the literature search key players related to the chosen public artworks will be identified and they will be invited to recommend possible participants to be interviewed who fit the criteria. The participants I interview may in turn recommend other people to be interviewed in the manner of chain referral sampling (Biernacki & Waldorf 1981) which is most likely to be inductive and exploratory in nature (Guest, Namey & Mitchell 2013, p. 45).

Description of the physical setting:  The methodology of portraiture also includes  a detailed description of the physical setting (Lawrence-Lightfoot 1983, p. 44). This is particularly pertinent as the portraits will be of public artworks which are site-specific and subsequently are more than just the materials of the artwork, but include other aspects which may be observed at the site. Observations of the artwork and its surrounds may bring to light amongst other things, ‘an actual location, a tangible reality, its identity composed of a unique combination of constitutive physical elements: length, depth, height, texture  . . .  scale and proportion, existing conditions of lighting, ventilation, traffic patterns, distinctive topographical features’(Kwon 1997, p. 85). The documentation of the physical public artwork and other physical spaces pertinent to the portrait will take the form of textual descriptions of the environment (Scott & Garner 2013, p. 224) and also visual descriptions such as drawings and photographs.

Drawing and art-making as methods of research, knowledge and meaning: The inclusion of drawings in portraiture methodology is foregrounded by Jessica Hoffmann-Davis who uses drawings in the Art and Science of Portraiture as metaphors to explain the Portrait methodology and to explicate the aesthetic aspect of portraiture. She suggests that the conversation between two active meaning makers, the producer and the perceiver of the work of art, results in a co-construction of meaning (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 29). I wish to use drawing as a method of producing other types of knowledge and data beside text within the portraits. Anne Rippin suggests that portraiture is a visual method which can be transferred to other artforms (Rippin 2012, p. 306) and argues that using visual art processes ‘allowed her to (re)present research findings in a particularly immediate way which actively engages the viewer or consumer of the research and allows for the co-creation of knowledge’ (Rippin 2012, p. 307). Sandra Weber (2008) outlines the broad and substantial theoretical foundations of using visual imagery within academic research and I will expand on the relationship between how I use drawing as both data and research analysis and these theoretical perspectives in my methodology chapter. Visual imagery both as a process of making meaning and knowledge for the makers and again as an object of knowledge and meaning, will be explored in both my self-journey chapter and also in the context of the permanent public artworks. In this sense using visual imagery also metaphorically confirms the importance and role of imagery in our world to convey meaning and ideas.

Analysis: Lightfoot’s (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, pp. 209-13) methodology of portraiture will primarily steer the analysis, alongside multiple/collective case study guidance from (Yin 2003b, p. 9) and (Stake, R. E. 1995).  The scope of the study will be limited to the exploration of the practical and philosophical considerations of involving community members as makers of permanent public art. I will closely work with Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 85) model of ‘voice’ which combines a stance of being ‘vigilantly counterintuitive, working against the grain of formerly held presuppositions, always alert and responsive to surprise,’ and her methods of searching for patterns, replication and themes emerging from the data (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, p. 185; Stake, R. E. 1995, p. 44; Yin 2003b, pp. 26, 47). These will become the focus which links the literature review and the four portraits. In order to validate my analysis I will also use strategies for avoiding bias such as rival theories (Yin 2003b, p. 62) and triangulation (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis 1997, pp. 173,216; Stake, R. E. 1995, pp. 107-20).

Reflexivity and criticality: There is the potential that I will have unplanned influence on my research participants through the process of interviews. Mruck and Breur (2003) suggest highlighting the subjectivity in the research. The planned self-portrait is a tool for making the subjectivity of myself as a researcher explicit and Lightfoot also confirms the importance of exposing the researcher’s perspective (1997, p. 172). Kvale (2002) stresses the need to be critical about the way we manage power relations and subjectivity in interviews and also suggests ‘agonistic alternatives’ which encourage opposing perspectives. Ravitch and Carl (2016) suggest that criticality includes ‘maintaining a fidelity to the complexity   and layeredness of people’s complicated experiences, and  identifying and resisting hegemonic hierarchy and power asymmetries. Their book is a useful resource which will assist me to maintain a critical approach to research design and implementation.