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Arts Based Research

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DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2015.964054

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Gioia Chilton
George Washington University
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Arts Based Research

Gioia Chilton
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 192
McNiff recounts his challenge to his students when
they are developing their art-based methodology, writing
that his goal is to be “as concrete as possible stressing how
art-based research is a physical process, an empirical ‘doing’
with materials” and to ask “What are you going to do?”
along with “Why? And how will it be of use to others?” (p.
112). There continues to be a need for better articulation of
“doing” along with other methods so that art-based
researchers can avoid these challenges and maximize
opportunities.
McNiff and his contributing authors have helped to
advance the learning and thinking about the use of art-
based research in the creative arts therapies field. I will defi-
nitely be placing this on the suggested reading list for my
research methodologies course in the fall, but I am still
waiting for that primer I can add to the required content
list.
Downloaded by [George Washington University] at 14:57 03 March 2015
Arts Based Research
by Tom Barone and Elliot W. Eisner
Los Angles, CA: Sage, 2012
208 pp., $58 paper
ISBN: 978-1-412-98247-4
Reviewed by Gioia Chilton
As an art therapist completing doctoral studies, I have
spent the last several years thinking about what forms of
research could fit with my own particular strengths and
interests and the abilities of art therapy clients. I was thrilled
to discover artistic inquiry and its more formal sibling, arts-
based research. I read voraciously on this topic—works not
just by scholars within art therapy, such as McNiff (1998)
and Kapitan (2010), but also those outside art therapy such
as Leavy (2009), Sullivan (2010), and Knowles and Cole
(2008). In all these sources I noted many references to the
team of Barone and Eisner.
Eisner (1933–2014) was a towering figure in art educa-
tion, a scholar who examined the role of art in research for
decades. Barone, a former student of Eisner and distin-
guished academic in his own right, has published numerous
works of literary nonfiction. As collaborators, these authors
published a much-needed text, Arts Based Research. In this
slim volume, they managed to succinctly present the basic
ideas of arts-based research. The book also addresses practi-
cal questions such as defining and delimiting what is and is
not arts-based research. Arts-based research is often con-
fused with research of or about art, where art is the subject
but not the method of inquiry. Barone and Eisner instead
clearly define arts-based research as “a process that uses the
expressive qualities of [artistic] form to convey meaning”
(p. xii) and pursue understanding. The purpose of arts-
based research is to prompt new questions and to “foster
uncertainty” in order to spark new conversations, rather
than come to any definitive answers (p. 19). Arts-based
research functions in this way by presenting aspects of the
social-emotional world to us via direct experience of artistic
REVIEWS
form—be it visual art, theatrical production, fiction, poetry,
or other artistic creations. As such, meanings are formed
beyond what words can convey (Langer, 1953). In arts-
based research various artistic forms are employed to
explore and evoke new understandings for the purposes of
research. In parallel with art as a means for self-discovery
through art therapy, art is used in arts-based research as a
means for understanding a research topic. Arts-based
research is particularly appropriate for inquiry into complex
social science questions that are not quantifiable.
Art therapy educators who teach research will appreci-
ate the publication of this reasonably priced book, and will
find several pedagogical features that make it an excellent
supplement to our current literature on the subject. It is
obvious that Eisner and Barone are first-rate educators,
given the layout, examples, and summary features that pres-
ent complex philosophical topics in a clear and understand-
able manner. The lack of research jargon in this text is
particularly refreshing, especially in conjunction with the
arts-based research examples that enliven it. These examples
use poetry and stories to effectively convey the emotional
and aesthetic power that can make arts-based research so
impactful. Art therapists interested in a social justice
research agenda also will value the section on the ethical
and political implications of arts-based research. Although
the social justice implications of this method are more fully
examined in Finley (2011), Barone and Eisner’s text does a
fine job of explicating how arts-based research may confront
and counter metanarratives and engage research consumers
and participants in empowering experiences. However, a
limitation is the lack of visual art examples. Readers who
are interested in an in-depth examination of visual art in
arts-based research are directed to Sullivan’s (2010) text.
I found Arts Based Research to contain a clear outline of
key topics of this methodology. Arts-based research is
increasing in popularity in the scholarly literature, as dem-
onstrated by this book and others forthcoming. Because art
is integral to the work of art therapists, I believe its praxis
will help us move forward by using our collective strength
as artists. Arts-based research is one method of research that
will help further develop the creative arts therapies by open-
ing hearts and minds to new questions and perspectives.
For these reasons, art therapy researchers and educators
should have Barone and Eisner’s Arts Based Research on
their bookshelves.
References
Finley, S. (2011). Critical arts-based inquiry: The pedagogy and
performance of a radical ethical aesthetic. In N. K. Denzin &
Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research
(4th ed., pp. 435–450). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kapitan, L. (2010). Introduction to art therapy research. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Knowles, J. G., & Cole, A. L. (2008). Handbook of the arts in
qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and
issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
 REVIEWS
Langer, S. (1953). Feeling and form: A theory of art. New York,
NY: Scribner.
Leavy, P. (2009). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice.
New York, NY: Guilford Press.
McNiff, S. (1998). Art-based research. London, England: Jessica
Kingsley.
Sullivan, G. (2010). Art practice as research: Inquiry in visual arts.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
What We See and What We Say: Using
Images in Research, Therapy,
Empowerment, and Social Change
Downloaded by [George Washington University] at 14:57 03 March 2015
by Ephrat Huss
New York, NY: Routledge, 2013
132 pp., 63 black & white ills., $130 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-415-51035-6
Reviewed by Emily Nolan
Art therapists are beginning to break down barriers to
research by substantiating art-based research methods.
What We See and What We Say is a book that demonstrates
art-based research methods as illustrated primarily through
the author’s social action work with Bedouin women in
Israel. Huss is an art therapist, social worker, and art ther-
apy educator who takes the stance that images can be a
voice for people in marginalized settings in three ways:
First, for themselves, to gain personal insight and relation-
ship to their own being; second, to express themselves in
the company of others who are like them in background
and experience; and third, to express what they need or
want to others who are different from them and who may
hold power due to that difference. The use of imagery in
social research and in anti-oppressive and feminist practice
as explored in this text is an important contribution to the
field of art therapy.
The book is organized into two sections. The first
describes Huss’s research with Bedouin women, their imagery
and artwork. The women’s social context, the research meth-
ods used, and the outcomes of the research are the focus of
the first chapters. The book’s second section emphasizes how
to use imagery in research and practice for the purpose of
social change. Huss describes postmodern, feminist, and anti-
oppressive approaches to art images and artifacts in research
and social action. A particular emphasis is placed on under-
standing imagery within the context of the cultures in which
it is created. Having recently conducted doctoral research on
a closely related topic, I found this text to add significantly to
a small but growing body of literature on how art therapists
can work with marginalized clients and appropriately under-
stand, interpret, and contextualize the art images they make.
Within this critical framework the author discusses the
relevant social and cultural contexts of the research partici-
pants, how those contexts reflect their presenting issues,
View publication stats
193
and how the women’s artwork depicts the circumstances in
which they live. Huss clearly outlines her own position as
an outsider in the community and notes areas where her
life differs from the women in the art therapy group as she
considers her own position of privilege. The examination of
personal privilege when working with marginalized people
is necessary in order to not contribute to further oppression.
As an example of attention to context, Huss describes
the use of traditional Bedouin art imagery that was already
meaningful to the participants. In the art therapy groups
she focused on both form and content, and used the partici-
pants’ own words when interpreting their artwork. This
practice also supports consideration of the artwork as a
whole rather than reducing it to specific elements that hold
only general meaning. When both the art therapist and the
art therapy participants interpreted the overall form of the
images created, the Bedouin women’s own words validated
their experiences and upheld them as experts in their own
lives. Huss reinforces this point in her description of the
power that the women participants do and do not hold
within their culture. She observed that the women could
influence decision making as long as they followed the right
cultural channels. Although the women may have felt pow-
erless, when they identified the ways they could and did
channel influence they felt empowered to work in culturally
and socially relevant ways. They were able to challenge sys-
tems and create change.
Art is an indirect means for exposing dominant narra-
tives and empowering change, as well as illuminating possi-
ble channels of influence. The author recommends
consideration of social, cultural, and individual meanings
that may be ascribed to imagery. She suggests that art thera-
pists have tended to understand art imagery from the per-
spective of an individual artist, whereas social workers tend
to take a social perspective and consider the social signifi-
cance of an image. What would be better, in terms of
research and practice, would be to utilize both ways of
understanding the art imagery created.
I appreciated Huss’s definition of imagery in art ther-
apy to include the “imagined” image or metaphor in addi-
tion to actual images created with traditional art materials
and processes. The idea of imagined imagery broadens the
uses of art within art therapy practice and research. Huss
explains that all of the images that were created in the proj-
ect were used in service of identifying strengths and ways of
coping that the participants were already utilizing in their
lives. Also intriguing is the parallel she draws between art
and words as data, and the similarities and differences in
how researchers approach analysis of these respective sour-
ces of information. Researchers who analyze words must
consider style and form; when researchers analyze images
they also consider form and content. In Huss’s project both
the Bedouin women and involved outsiders were able to
look at the images in their artwork to see multiple levels of
oppression that existed in their lives. Both the symbols pres-
ent within the artwork and the artwork as a whole served to
communicate these realities.
Because she analyzed diverse data, Huss offers a fasci-
nating postmodern approach to research. Looking at images